Brain related interfaces are emerging technologies to revive perception and action following different degenerative diseases and traumatic incidents. Electrical stimulation helps retina to generate phosphenes to patients who learn over time to associate them with basic vision. Currently these devices are not supporting features such as: Face recognition, independent locomotion, and text reading.
For retinal prostheses conductive electrode materials with a high double layer capacitance are expected to supply spatial resolution. Carbon related materials like graphene and graphene derivatives are currently studied for their electrical properties as biosensors and neural interfacing. As neural interfacing materials, graphene and its derivatives are useful as an electrode material that is handy for recording and stimulation. Graphene is a single-layered and a 2-D material that has high electron mobility. Graphene is kept under high temperatures on metallic substrates such as chemical vapor deposition reactors. The high transparency of CVD graphene has already been seen in acute cortical recordings with calcium imaging also in measuring electroretinograms in non-human primates.
So, graphene should be further studied to know deeply how it can be used in electrodes for retinal prostheses or in any other device for recording and stimulation of the central nervous system and brain. Further studies would access developed graphene structures on persistant devices to match biocompatibility, safety and stimulation capabilities between classic materials and graphene-based electrodes.