Simulation of epiretinal prostheses - evaluation of geometrical factors affecting stimulation thresholds.

Background: An accurate understanding of the electrical interaction between retinal prostheses and retinal tissue is important to design effective devices. Previous studies have used modelling approaches to simulate electric fields generated by epiretinal prostheses in saline and to simulate retinal ganglion cell (RGC) activation using passive or/and active biophysical models of the retina. These models have limited scope for studying an implanted human retinal prosthesis as they often do not account for real geometry and composition of the prosthesis-retina interface.

Distinguishing drug-induced minor morphological changes from major cellular damage via label-free impedimetric toxicity screening.

We present a novel perfusion-based microfluidic platform for label-free drug toxicity screening which can single out non-lethal morphological changes from cellular death using electrical impedance spectroscopy. Minor cellular changes such as cell-cell contacts and major cell injury were identified via impedance phase angle analysis and follow-up of impedance magnitude at different frequencies. Having exposed HepG2/C3A cells to acetaminophen (AP), we showed that continuous drug perfusion caused a time and concentration-dependent impedance decrease.

Simulations to study spatial extent of stimulation and effect of electrode-tissue gap in subretinal implants.

We present a finite element based simulation and analysis method to describe the spatial extent of stimulation and the effects of electrode-tissue interactions in subretinal prostheses. In particular, we estimate the threshold stimulation current needed to depolarise and evoke action potentials in the ganglion cells to be stimulated at a particular distance from the electrode. This is achieved through the application of a threshold electric field to a spherical neuronal soma model of a retinal ganglion cell under consideration.