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Scientists claim to have found a way to restore Vision Among people with A normal developmental eye The disorder “reboots” the retina to its initial state, enabling it to grow and heal itself.
researchers of Massachusetts Institute of Technology In We he was found temporarily anesthetic The retina can reverse vision loss at an early stage, correcting a condition called amblyopia or “lazy eye.”
In people with amblyopia, vision in one or both eyes does not develop properly during childhood because the brain learns to ignore one eye.
Current treatments are only effective during infancy when neural connections are still forming.
According to a study published in the journal, MIT researchers found that anesthetizing the retina of the amblyopic eye of mice for a few days restored the brain’s visual response to that eye, even into adulthood. cell report,
In future studies, they hope to show that the treatment also works in other animal species and eventually humans.
Study author Mark Byers argued, “If this happens, it would be a huge step forward because it would be reassuring to know that vision in the good eye will not be disrupted by the treatment.”, “The amblyopic eye, which isn’t doing much, can be deactivated and brought ‘back to life’ instead.”
The researchers focused on a network of brain nerves called the lateral geniculate nucleus, which transmits information from the eyes to the visual cortex where vision is processed.
In 2008, researchers found that blocking signals from the retina of the eye to nerves in the network caused those neurons to activate synchronous “bursts” of electrical signals to nerves in the visual cortex.
The latest study tested whether those bursts of signals played a role in a potential amblyopia treatment.
They injected anesthesia into the eyes of amblyopic mice and compared them with a control group. They found that the injection kept the retina offline for up to two days.
The researchers then measured activity in neurons of the visual cortex to find out the ratio of signals from each eye.
The signal ratio was much higher in mice that received the treatment than in untreated mice, indicating that the injection could “reboot” the eye.
This showed that after anesthetizing the amblyopic eye, its input to the brain became equal to the input to the normal eye.
“We are cautiously optimistic that these findings may lead to a new treatment approach for human amblyopia, especially given the finding that sedating the amblyopic eye is effective,” the researchers said in the study.