Live Demonstration: A Stimulation Platform For Optogenetic And Bionic Vision Restoration

Optogenetics can be used to restore light responses in patients affected by retinal degenerative diseases. The light-sensitivity of the molecule introduced by genetic therapy is however very limited in terms of wavelength and irradiance needed to activate a useful neural response, and thus needs an external device to be correctly stimulated. Moreover, the visual signal needs to be encoded so as to respect the code used by the target cells (e.g. retinal ganglion cells). In this demonstration we present a platform that can be used to stimulate optogenetically-treated retinal cells, and the algorithms associated with different types of stimulations. We show different stimulation strategies, varying accordingly to the type of cells transfected.