Abstract—Visual perception which is one of the most valuable perceptions for human beings may be lost over time because of various diseases such as Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). These degenerative diseases cause severe damage to the certain parts of visual pathway and irreversible blindness. For the past last decades, with the improvements in the areas such as microelectronics, neuroscience and bioengineering, researches conducting on design and implementation of visual prosthetics become a promising therapeutic approach for the visual restoration. Visual perception, called phosphene, is reported to be obtained in studies which are based on electrical stimulation of the intact parts of the visual pathway. There are major factors that have to be considered in the design stage of a visual prosthesis system. One of them is the temperature change of the targeted retinal tissue and its surrounding due to electrical stimulation. In this study, a model is created to investigate thermal influence of an implant placed internal surface of the retinal tissue and solution is made using finite element analysis. It is shown that the temperature rise has highest value near the stimulation electrode and its surroundings in the case of using the model with thermal insulation. When the heat transfer mechanism is added to the simulation model, it is seen that the temperature rise is less and looks more realistic. With additive effect of heat transfer to the surrounding tissue and distance from stimulation electrode, temperature decreases away from the stimulation electrode.

Index Terms—Electrical stimulation, finite element analysis, temperature change, visual prosthesis.

M. E. Çelik and I. Karagöz are with the Department of Electrical-Electronics Engineering, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey (e-mail: mahmutemincelik@gazi.edu.tr, irfankaragoz@gazi.edu.tr).

Cite:Mahmut Emin Çelik and İrfan Karagöz, "The Effect of the Electrical Stimulation on Temperature Rise in the Retinal Tissue for Visual Prostheses," International Journal of Computer and Electrical Engineering vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 369-372, 2014.