Giving Sight to the Blind

Most of us know someone who's losing his or her sight because of macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, or some other degenerative retinal condition. Thus, this report comes as wonderful news. Scientists are optimistic that a prosthesis may be available in a few years that will allow people with deteriorated retinas to see:

Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain, according to a study that may lead to new prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people.

Current devices are limited in the aid they provide to people with degenerative diseases of the retina, the part of the eye that converts light into electrical impulses to the brain. In research described today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists cracked the code the retina uses to communicate with the brain.

Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain.

The technology moves prosthetics beyond bright light and high-contrast recognition and may be adopted for human use within a year or two, said Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the study’s lead author.

“What this shows is that we have the essential ingredients to make a very effective prosthetic,” Nirenberg said.

The article goes on to say that "No foreseeable barriers should stop the movement into humans now that the technology has been created." Read the rest at the link.