Temporal properties of visual perception on electrical stimulation of the retina

To investigate the elementary temporal properties of electrically evoked percepts in blind patients chronically implanted with an epiretinal prosthesis. Nine subjects were presented with isolated stimuli of variable duration and pulse rate. Stimulation amplitude was set to the upper comfortable leve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Investigative ophthalmology & visual science 2012-05, Vol.53 (6), p.2720-2731
Main Authors: Pérez Fornos, Angélica, Sommerhalder, Jörg, da Cruz, Lyndon, Sahel, Jose Alain, Mohand-Said, Saddek, Hafezi, Farhad, Pelizzone, Marco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Aged
Blindness - physiopathology
Electric Stimulation
Electrodes, Implanted
Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology
Female
Humans
Light
Male
Microelectrodes
Middle Aged
Phosphenes - physiology
Prosthesis Implantation
Retina - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
Visual Prosthesis
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Summary:To investigate the elementary temporal properties of electrically evoked percepts in blind patients chronically implanted with an epiretinal prosthesis. Nine subjects were presented with isolated stimuli of variable duration and pulse rate. Stimulation amplitude was set to the upper comfortable level and a group of 2 × 2 adjacent electrodes was simultaneously activated. First, subjects were asked to verbally describe their visual perception paying particular attention to the time-course of brightness. Then, in subsequent trials, they described the brightness time dependence using a joystick while auditory feedback of joystick position was provided. All subjects described a bright, well-localized percept at stimulus onset. Only one subject reported such a bright, well-localized visual sensation during an entire 10-second stimulation trial. For the remaining eight subjects, it faded more or less rapidly (in four cases
ISSN:1552-5783
1552-5783
DOI:10.1167/iovs.11-9344