Development of a Retinal Readout System

视网膜读出系统的开发

• 批准号: 0245104
• 负责人: Alan Litke
• 金额: $ 19万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Cruz
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-08-01 至 2005-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0245104&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Retinal; Readout; System

This award supports the continued development of a system to study how the primate retina processes and encodes visual images. This Retinal Readout System will allow the simultaneous detection of signals from hundreds to thousands of retinal output neurons while the retina is stimulated by dynamic visual images focused on the input neurons. The signals from the output neurons will be detected in real-time, from a single living retinal preparation, with all spatial and temporal correlations among the signals recorded. Although the emphasis of the proposed work is on the study of the retina, the instrumentation and software tools under development are extremely versatile, with the potential for wide application in other areas of neuroscience. The Retinal Readout System is based in part on the silicon microstrip detector technological concepts and expertise developed to study short-lived particles in high energy physics experiments. The specific items under development include arrays of 512 microelectrodes for recording the signals generated by retinal neurons, a custom-designed analog VLSI chip (the Neurochip) for amplifying, filtering, and multiplexing these signals, a fast data acquisition system, and analysis software to efficiently process the data sample. This interdisciplinary project in neurophysics has provided, and will continue to provide, research opportunities for undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs, in both physics and biology. These opportunities range from independent study courses to senior thesis to Ph. D. thesis work.

该奖项支持继续开发一个系统，以研究灵长类动物视网膜如何处理和编码视觉图像。这种视网膜读数系统将允许同时检测数百至数千个视网膜输出神经元的信号，而视网膜被集中在输入神经元上的动态视觉图像刺激。输出神经元的信号将通过单个生活视网膜制备实时检测，并在记录的信号之间进行所有空间和时间相关。尽管所提出的工作的重点是对视网膜的研究，但正在开发的仪器和软件工具非常通用，并有可能在其他神经科学领域进行广泛应用。视网膜读数系统部分基于硅微带探测器技术概念和专业知识，用于研究高能物理实验中的短寿命颗粒。开发的特定项目包括512个微电极的阵列，用于记录视网膜神经元产生的信号，一种定制设计的模拟VLSI芯片（神经芯片），用于放大，过滤和多重信号，快速数据采集系统以及分析软件，以有效地处理数据示例。这个神经物理学的跨学科项目已经为本科生，研究生和博士学位提供了研究机会，并将继续为物理学和生物学提供研究机会。这些机会范围从独立学习课程到高级论文，再到博士学位论文的工作。