Project: Improving intracortical visual prostheses using complex coding and spontaneous activation states
| Acronym | I-See (Reference Number: NEURON-051) |
| Duration | 01/10/2021 - 30/09/2024 |
| Project Topic | For the large group of blind patients who cannot profit from a retinal implant, intracortical visual prostheses offer great promise. However, intracortical prostheses have had limited success, mainly because they require strong stimulation currents, which generate only non-specific percepts consisting of large spots of light. Here we address these limitations by exploring a fundamentally different approach: we will target complex response properties of neural populations in areas beyond primary visual cortex to generate more specific percepts and link electrical stimulation patterns in a closed-loop setup to the extensive on-going activity in visual cortex to greatly reduce required stimulation currents. To achieve these goals we will bring together scientists from different fields and complementary experimental methods, supported by a strong backbone in computational and theoretical neuroscience. Research will rely on close collaborations between partners, including mutual data exchange on different levels; data-driven predictive modeling; techniques for multi-site, closed-loop brain stimulation; and sharing of experimental paradigms between the disciplines. Planned work ranges from developing subthreshold stimulation techniques in mice, testing novel stimulation paradigms in non-human primates, evaluating sparse stimulus encoding schemes in humans, up to assessing anatomical & functional constraints on the applicability of an intracortical prosthesis in blind individuals. |
| Network | NEURON Cofund |
| Call | Call for Proposals for Transnational Research Projects on Sensory Disorders |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Bremen | Coordinator | Germany |
| 2 | McGill University | Partner | Canada |
| 3 | Ruhr University Bochum | Partner | Germany |
| 4 | CHUV and University of Lausanne (UNIL) | Partner | Switzerland |
| 5 | École Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL) | Partner | Switzerland |