- Title Information
- Title
- Gold Nanorod-Mediated Near-Infrared Stimulation of Neurons in Retinal Explants
- Type of Resource
- text
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Neifert, Alexander Ray
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Schell, Jacquelyn
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Lee, Jonghwan
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Advisor
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Cutting, Shawna
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- Reader
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- sponsor
- Origin Information
- Copyright Date
- 2020
- Physical Description
- Extent
- v, 52 p.
- digitalOrigin
- born digital
- Note:
thesis
- Thesis (Sc. M.)--Brown University, 2020
- Genre (aat)
- theses
- Abstract
- Vision loss and blindness continue to be leading causes of disability both nationally and
globally. There has been progress in treating certain causes of blindness, such as uncontrolled
diabetes and cataracts. However, retinal degenerative diseases such as age-related macular
degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, and Stargardt disease remain incurable. These diseases are
unique in that primary cell loss occurs at the photoreceptor level, while underlying networks of
bipolar, horizontal, amacrine and retinal ganglion cells generally survive. This remaining cell
network provides a unique opportunity to restore vision through retinal prosthetic devices.
Early electrode-based retinal prostheses have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach but
have been limited in their resolution.
The Lee Laboratory has been working to develop an alternative approach, which uses
near-infrared light to stimulate gold nanoparticles adjacent to retinal ganglion cells. Such an
approach has the potential to achieve a much higher resolution than current electrode
methods. When compared to optogenetics-based approaches, the nanoparticle stimulation
does not need to genetically alter cells through viral vectors.
This thesis describes ex vivo studies of the promising approach. We used genetically
engineered calcium indicators for clear visualization of retinal ganglion cell response. Initial
investigation focused on identifying ideal voltage and pulse durations for stimulation.
Improvements in perfusion and image analysis were undertaken to reduce movement artifact.
Additional modifications were made to investigate the feasibility of a widefield of view so that
pattern-based multicellular stimulations would be possible moving forward.
- Subject
- Topic
- retinal prosthetics
- Subject
- Topic
- gold nanorod
- Subject
- Topic
- near infrared neural stimulation
- Language
- Language Term (ISO639-2B)
- English
- Record Information
- Record Content Source (marcorg)
- RPB
- Record Creation Date
(encoding="iso8601")
- 20200720
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.26300/xxk5-dh25
- Access Condition:
rights statement
(href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
- In Copyright
- Access Condition:
restriction on access
- Collection is open for research.