Project description
A non-invasive retinal implant
A brain-machine interface (BMI) is a communication device that acquires brain signals and translates neuronal information into commands. Despite the immense potential of BMIs, their performance remains suboptimal due to technical challenges. Funded by the European Research Council, the Outer-Ret project will focus on retinal implants as a means of treating retinal degenerative diseases. The key objective is to improve retinal neurostimulation and develop a non-invasive approach to generate artificial vision. Results will provide fundamental insight into the biology of retina but also advance current strategies for offering functional vision to patients with retinal degenerative diseases.
Objective
Retinal implants remain one of the most demanding technologies in brain-machine interfacing. State of the art devices have yet to reach the needed performances. Main barriers are sub-optimal stimulation parameters and long development and testing procedures. While invasive approaches, have yet to achieve the resolution performances needed by million of patients blinded by retinal degenerative diseases, non-invasive approaches in the form of trans-orbital stimulation have received no attention, yet they offer potentially dramatically cheaper and easy to adapt and optimize technology. The main goal of this project is to advance the field of retina neurostimulation by developing new tools for the study and interfacing with the retina. In particular: (1) Bi-directional electrophysiological interface which can record and stimulate the intact retina (in the eye) and (2) soft multi-electrode arrays for non-invasive stimulation of the retina (soft trans-orbital electrodes) will be explored. We will use these tools to study the retina in its intact form (in animal models) and we will implement the gained know-how in humans to study non-invasive stimulation. In this project we will establish a new platform for bi-directional electrophysiological interfacing with the intact retina and we will use it to study the retina in its intact form. Such investigations have ground breaking nature as they can advance both the fundamental understanding of the retina and improve the manner by which we stimulate the retina to generate artificial vision: Specifically, we aim to record spontaneous waves activity and light sensitive ganglion cells, optimize electrical stimulation parameters in the intact retina, and ultimately to measure retina responses to trans-orbit stimulation. As the ultimate goal of the project, we aim to establish the foundation of trans-orbital stimulation as a new non-invasive paradigm for functional vision in patient suffering from retina degenerative diseases.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine ophthalmology
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology implants
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2021-ADG
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69978 Tel Aviv
Israel
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