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Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns
Published on: May 12, 2019
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A machine-learning algorithm correctly classifies cortical evoked potentials from both visual stimulation and
Vivien Gaillet1, Eleonora Borda1, Elodie Geneviève Zollinger1
1Medtronic Chair in Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Geneva 1202, Switzerland.
Journal of Neural Engineering
|April 6, 2021
Summary
Intraneural optic nerve stimulation using the OpticSELINE array in rabbits evoked distinct patterns in the visual cortex. This finding is a crucial step towards developing artificial vision prostheses that create non-overlapping phosphenes for blind patients.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Biomedical Engineering
- Ophthalmology
Background:
- Intraneural optic nerve stimulation is a promising neuroprosthetic strategy for restoring vision in blind individuals.
- A key challenge is determining if individual electrodes can elicit non-overlapping phosphenes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if distinct cortical activity patterns can be evoked by individual intraneural electrodes in preclinical animal models.
- To assess the feasibility of selective stimulation for future artificial vision applications.
Main Methods:
- Healthy rabbits underwent patterned visual and electrical stimulation of the optic nerve using the OpticSELINE intraneural array.
- Electrocorticogram arrays recorded activity in the primary visual cortex.
- Support vector machine and linear regression models classified cortical responses.
Main Results:
- Cortical responses to both visual and electrical stimuli were classified with nearly 100% accuracy based on origin.
- Stimulus separation significantly improved classification accuracy for visual stimuli.
- Electrical stimulation accuracy increased with electrode separation at low currents and was high even at short separations at higher currents.
Conclusions:
- OpticSELINE stimulation successfully induced discernible cortical activity patterns, demonstrating a necessary condition for non-overlapping phosphene perception.
- Further clinical studies are required to validate these findings for human perception and artificial vision.
