• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2022

It has been found through physiological experiments that the visual neurons constituting the human visual cortex do not respond to all visual stimuli, but to a visual stimuli with specific conditions. In order to interpret such physiological experiments, a model that can simulate the firing characteristics of neurons including a linear filter with random gain was proposed. It has been proven through experiments that subspaces are formed. To verify the validity of the implemented model, the distribution of values for two pixels randomly extracted from four different visual stimulus data was observed. The difference between the two distributions was confirmed by extracting the central coordinate value, that is, the coordinate value with the most values, from the distribution of the total stimulus data and the spike ignition stimulus data. In the case of the entire set, it was verified through experiments that the stimulus data generating spikes is a subset or subspace of the entire stimulus data. This study can be used as a basic study related to the mechanism of spikes in response to visual stimuli.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.541-553
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• 2023

Retinal prostheses have shown some clinical success in restoring vision in patients with retinitis pigmentosa. However, the post-implantation visual acuity does not exceed that of legal blindness. The reason for the poor visual acuity might be that (1) degenerate retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are less responsive to electrical stimulation than normal RGCs, and (2) electrically-evoked RGC spikes show a more widespread not focal response. The single-biphasic pulse electrical stimulation, commonly used in artificial vision, has limitations in addressing these issues. In this study, we propose the benefit of multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation. We used C57BL/6J mice and C3H/HeJ (rd1) mice for the normal retina and retinal degeneration model. An 8 × 8 multi-electrode array was used to record electrically-evoked RGC spikes. We compared RGC responses when increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse versus increasing the number of consecutive biphasic pulses at the same stimulus charge. Increasing the amplitude of a single biphasic pulse induced more RGC spike firing while the spatial resolution of RGC populations decreased. For multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation, RGC firing increased as the number of pulses increased, and the spatial resolution of RGC populations was well preserved even up to 5 pulses. Multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation using two or three pulses in degenerate retinas induced as much RGC spike firing as in normal retinas. These findings suggest that the newly proposed multiple consecutive-biphasic pulse stimulation can improve the visual acuity in prosthesis-implanted patients.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.371-382
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• 2011

We performed experiments using Aplysia neurons to identify the mechanism underlying the changes in the firing patterns in response to temperature changes. When the temperature was gradually increased from $11^{\circ}C$ to $31^{\circ}C$ the firing patterns changed sequentially from the silent state to beating, doublets, beating-chaos, bursting-chaos, square-wave bursting, and bursting-oscillation patterns. When the temperature was decreased over the same temperature range, these sequential changes in the firing patterns reappeared in reverse order. To simulate this entire range of spiking patterns we modified nonlinear differential equations that Chay and Lee made using temperature-dependent scaling factors. To refine the equations, we also analyzed the spike pattern changes in the presence of potassium channel blockers. Based on the solutions of these equations and potassium channel blocker experiments, we found that, as temperature increases, the maximum value of the potassium channel relaxation time constant, ${\tau}_n(t)$ increases, but the maximum value of the probabilities of openings for activation of the potassium channels, n(t) decreases. Accordingly, the voltage-dependent potassium current is likely to play a leading role in the temperature-dependent changes in the firing patterns in Aplysia neurons.

• Honam Mathematical Journal
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.402-418
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• 2022

Noise is a fundamental factor to increased validity and regularity of spike propagation and neuronal firing in the nervous system. In this paper, we examine the stochastic version of the Izhikevich-FitzHugh neuron dynamical model. This approach is based on techniques presented by Luo and Guo, which provide a general framework for the bifurcation and stability analysis of two dimensional stochastic dynamical system as an Itô averaging diffusion system. By using largest lyapunov exponent, local and global stability of the stochastic system at the equilibrium point are investigated. We focus on the two kinds of stochastic bifurcations: the P-bifurcation and the D-bifurcations. By use of polar coordinate, Taylor expansion and stochastic averaging method, it is shown that there exists choices of diffusion and drift parameters such that these bifurcations occurs. Finally, numerical simulations in various viewpoints, including phase portrait, evolution in time and probability density, are presented to show the effects of the diffusion and drift coefficients that illustrate our theoretical results.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.347-354
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• 2009

For the reliable transmission of meaningful visual information using prosthetic electrical stimulation, it is required to develop an effective stimulation strategy for the generation of electrical pulse trains based on input visual information. The characteristics of neuronal activities of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) evoked by electrical stimulation should be understood for this purpose. In this study, for the development of an optimal stimulation strategy for visual prosthesis, we analyzed the neuronal responses of RGCs in rd1 mouse, photoreceptor-degenerated retina of animal model of retinal diseases (retinitis pigmentosa). Based on the in-vitro model of epiretinal prosthesis which consists of planar multielectrode array (MEA) and retinal patch, we recorded and analyzed multiunit RGC activities evoked by amplitude-modulated electrical pulse trains. Two modes of responses were observed. Short-latency responses occurring at 3 ms after the stimulation were estimated to be from direct stimulation of RGCs. Long-latency responses were also observed mainly at 2 - 100 ms after stimulation and showed rhythmic firing with same frequency as the oscillatory background field potential. The long-latency responses could be modulated by pulse amplitude and duration. From the results, we expect that optimal stimulation conditions such as pulse amplitude and pulse duration can be determined for the successful transmission of visual information by electrical stimulation.