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posted by mrpg on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the in-hindsight... dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Researchers funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) have reversed congenital blindness in mice by changing supportive cells in the retina called Müller glia into rod photoreceptors. The findings advance efforts toward regenerative therapies for blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. A report of the findings appears online today in Nature. NEI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

"This is the first report of scientists reprogramming Müller glia to become functional rod photoreceptors in the mammalian retina," said Thomas N. Greenwell, Ph.D., NEI program director for retinal neuroscience. "Rods allow us to see in low light, but they may also help preserve cone photoreceptors, which are important for color vision and high visual acuity. Cones tend to die in later-stage eye diseases. If rods can be regenerated from inside the eye, this might be a strategy for treating diseases of the eye that affect photoreceptors."

Photoreceptors are light-sensitive cells in the retina in the back of the eye that signal the brain when activated. In mammals, including mice and humans, photoreceptors fail to regenerate on their own. Like most neurons, once mature they don't divide.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday August 21 2018, @02:44PM (#724183) Journal

    Indeed. Sight into the IR spectrum beyond the normal human might even be possible.

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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:19PM

    by Freeman (732) on Tuesday August 21 2018, @04:19PM (#724238) Journal

    That would seem inconvenient at best, unless you could easily switch your vision back and forth.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"