Objective . Retinal prostheses strive to restore vison to patients that are blind from retinal degeneration by electrically stimulating surviving retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The quality of elicited percepts remains limited however and it is desirable to develop improved stimulation strategies. Here, we examine how the anatomical and biophysical properties of RGCs influence activation thresholds, including the effects of variations found naturally. Approach . Detailed reconstructions were made of a large number of mouse α RGCs and were used to create an array of model cells; the models were used to study the effects of individual anatomical features on activation threshold to electric stimulation. Stimulation was delivered epiretinally from a point-source or disk electrode and consisted of monophasic or biphasic rectangular pulses. Main results. Modeling results show that the region of minimum threshold always is within the axon initial segment (AIS)...

中文翻译：

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α RGCs 形态学特性与细胞外电刺激阈值之间的关系。

客观的 。视网膜假体通过电刺激幸存的视网膜神经节细胞 (RGC)，努力为因视网膜变性而失明的患者恢复视力。然而，引发知觉的质量仍然有限，因此需要开发改进的刺激策略。在这里，我们研究了 RGC 的解剖和生物物理特性如何影响激活阈值，包括自然发现的变异的影响。方法 。对大量小鼠α RGC进行了详细的重建，并用于创建一系列模型细胞；这些模型用于研究个体解剖特征对电刺激激活阈值的影响。刺激是从点源或圆盘电极在视网膜前传递的，由单相或双相矩形脉冲组成。主要结果。