Visual Cortical Plasticity and the Implications for Sight Restoration Technologies

视觉皮层可塑性及其对视力恢复技术的影响

• 批准号: 10480903
• 负责人: Rebecca Esquenazi
• 金额: $ 2.59万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2022-12-15
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10480903
• 关键词: Adult; Age related macular degeneration; Area; Blindness; Brain; Cells; Characteristics; Classification; Clinical; Clinical Trials; Cochlear Implants; Code; Complex; Cues; Data; Development; Devices; Discrimination; Disease; Electric Stimulation; Electrodes; Electronics; Eye; Fire - disasters; Frequencies; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Future; Glaucoma; Goals; Hour; Human; Image; Implant; Individual; Lateral; Learning; Leber' s disease; Location; Macular degeneration; Noise; Participant; Patients; Pattern; Perceptual learning; Performance; Photic Stimulation; Play; Population; Prosthesis; Recovery; Resolution; Retina; Retinitis Pigmentosa; Role; Sensory Deprivation; Stimulus; Technology; Testing; Time; Training; Up-Regulation; Video Games; Vision; Visual; Visual Cortex; Visual Pathways; Work; attenuation; base; deaf; deprivation; expectation; experience; extrastriate visual cortex; gene therapy; improved; monocular; neural patterning; new technology; novel; object recognition; optogenetics; relating to nervous system; response; retinal prosthesis; sight restoration; transfer learning; visual plasticity; visual processing

Project Summary While only limited treatment options for diseases such as age related macular degeneration, glaucoma and retinitis pigmentosa currently exist, there are variety of technologies being developed that attempt to restore some visual functioning, including electronic prostheses (either cortical or retinal), optogenetics, and gene therapy. These technologies are not likely to recreate normal vision, but rather provide essential visual input that can improve everyday functioning in patients. In the current state of sight restoration technology, electronic and optogenetic sight recovery technologies cause early on- and off-center retinal cells to fire simultaneously, rather than in a biologically complementary fashion (i.e. when on- cells fire, off-cells representing the same location are suppressed). This creates deeply unnatural population responses that propagate from the retina to cortex. The central question of this proposal is whether patients have the potential to access cortical plasticity in adulthood that improves their ability to decode the unnatural cell population responses in early visual processing elicited by electronic prosthesis or optogenetic technologies. Here, we propose a unique way to understand the role of cortical plasticity in adulthood by examining whether normally sighted individuals can learn to decode visually distorted images by playing action video games. We will manipulate the spatial frequency, orientation and contrast information presented dichoptically to each eye in a way that provides a similar decoding challenge to that posed by electronic or optogenetic prostheses. This distorted information will be used in real time in a video game training paradigm, and we will then use an object discrimination task as a test of perceptual learning. We will examine transfer of learning (for example, using monocular stimuli, and switching filter eye of origin) to uncover specific mechanisms of learning (Aim 1). Next, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we will examine whether participants are learning to create novel neural representations of objects during perceptual learning or whether there is a convergence with previous existing object representations in object- selective brain areas (Aim 2). Finally, we will test whether perceptual learning is enhanced by short periods of binocular deprivation (Specific Aim 3). This work, examining the mechanisms underlying improvements in the ability to decode these distorted stimuli, will provide developers of sight recovery technologies with empirical data about the potential of human participants to learn to decode unnatural neural population responses in adulthood.

项目摘要 虽然仅针对与年龄相关的黄斑变性，青光眼和视网膜炎等疾病的治疗选择有限 当前存在着色素，正在开发各种各样的技术，试图恢复某些视觉功能， 包括电子假体（皮质或视网膜），光遗传学和基因治疗。这些技术不太可能 重新创建正常视力，而是提供必要的视觉输入，以改善患者的日常功能。 在目前的视线恢复技术中，电子和光学遗传视觉恢复技术会提早引起 在中心和中心的视网膜细胞同时发射，而不是以生物互补的方式发射（即 细胞射击，代表同一位置的外部的外部被抑制）。这产生了深层不自然的人口反应 从视网膜传播到皮层。该提案的主要问题是患者是否有可能进入 成年期的皮质可塑性提高了他们在早期视觉中解码非天然细胞种群反应的能力 通过电子假体或光遗传技术引起的处理。 在这里，我们提出了一种独特的方法，以通过检查正常是否正常检查，了解成年中皮质可塑性的作用 视力的人可以通过玩动作视频游戏来学会解码视觉扭曲的图像。我们将操纵 空间频率，定向和对比度信息以二分为二分向每只眼睛显示的方式提供了类似的方式 对电子或光遗传假体提出的挑战。 这些扭曲的信息将在视频游戏训练范式中实时使用，然后我们将使用一个对象 歧视任务是对感知学习的考验。我们将检查学习的转移（例如，使用单眼 刺激和切换过滤器的眼睛）以发现特定的学习机制（AIM 1）。接下来，使用功能 磁共振成像，我们将检查参与者是否正在学习创建新的神经表示 感知学习期间的对象，或者是否与对象中的以前现有对象表示有融合 - 选择性大脑区域（AIM 2）。最后，我们将通过短期双目来测试感知学习是否会增强 剥夺（特定目标3）。 这项工作检查了解码这些扭曲刺激能力的基础机制，将 向视力恢复技术的开发人员提供有关人类参与者学会潜力的经验数据 在成年期解码不自然的神经种群反应。