He realized that this failure to restore sight happened because the freshly grown nerves differed in a key way from normal nerves: They lacked insulation, so electrical signals from the eye diminished before reaching the brain. This, He knew, is the exact same problem as is seen in the nerves of people with multiple sclerosis. So the researchers gave these same mice the MS drug 4-AP, and three hours later tested them again. Suddenly the animals started moving their heads in response to the rotating drum.
Blind mice could once again see. Chiaki Komatsu , plastic surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center pioneering the research into whole eye transplants, inspect an eye and optic nerve of a rat in their lab.
If scientists were able to grow a new retina on the donor eye from stem cells, Huberman said, those fresh retinal neurons might more easily grow projections that can stretch all the way to the brain.
Regardless of the approach, many challenges lie ahead. Nickells has been working with mice whose optic nerves were crushed, so it remains to be seen whether the same principles will work when the nerve is cut. For Washington, the next steps involve finding noninvasive ways to monitor possible rejection of the donor eye in both rats and primates. This will prevent her from having to biopsy the eye to look for rejection, which is the standard way to monitor other kinds of transplants.
Once she identifies rejection, she wants to see how the eye responds to the standard immunosuppressive drugs. The first human recipients of whole eye transplants, Washington predicts, will be those already slated for a face transplant.
Many of these patients are blind and will have to take immunosuppressive drugs regardless, so the risk versus reward ratio of transplanting the eye is very low. And despite the hurdles ahead, Washington believes transplantation is the best way forward in treating vision loss from eye injury.
Erin Hare is a freelance science writer in her final year of a neuroscience PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh. This article is reproduced with permission from STAT. It was first published on Nov. Find the original story here. Support Provided By: Learn more. Friday, Nov Therefore, it is crucial that our eyes remain connected to our brains by the optic nerve, which sends visual signals from the eye to the brain, where they are interpreted as images.
The optic nerve is only between 1. If these nerves are cut, they cannot be reconnected. Surgeons cannot transplant a whole eye because even if they could implant the eye into the socket, the eye still would not be able to transmit signals to the brain through the optic nerve, and thus the patient would not be able to see.
Related: Refractive Lense Exchange. Corneal transplantation, on the other hand, is entirely possible, and the concept itself is nothing new. The procedure is more than a century old, though of course it has been modernized as medical technology has advanced. A cornea that is scarred or swollen can cause blurred vision or glare.
If your cornea cannot be healed or repaired, your ophthalmologist may recommend a corneal transplant. Corneal transplants allow patients to regain good vision after their cornea is injured or affected by disease. At the time of death, professionals affiliated with an eye bank harvest the eyes. The professionals at the eye bank evaluate and prepare the eye tissues for transplant, research or education.
When you become an eye donor, you have the satisfaction of knowing you help to restore the sight of another person or advance the progress of medicine or the education of future ophthalmologists. Atlantic Eye MD is located at N. Wickham Road in Melbourne. To make an appointment please call To learn more visit AtlanticEyeMD. Facebook Twitter Email. Focus on Eyes: Can we transplant an eye?
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