Fri, Oct 13th 2023
A research team led by the University of Freiburg has made tree shrews see without eyes. Using a special method, they stimulated a certain brain region to let the animals perceive light even if they could not see it naturally.
In doing so, they laid the groundwork for a new generation of visual prosthetics, the University of Fribourg (Unifr) wrote in a news release Thursday.
Excitations in the visual system normally result from activation of the eye’s retina, Unifr explained. The research team, led by Professor Gregor Rainer, has now succeeded in technically generating such activations without any visual information reaching the eye, he said.
The nerve cells were excited using a method known as optogenetics. This method allows information to be fed into the visual system even if the eyes are lost, which is then interpreted by the brain as vision, it was added. The present results could therefore form the basis for a next generation of visual prostheses.
For this to become reality, further targeted research work is necessary. In this context, tree shrews are well suited due to their distinctive visual system and its similarity to humans.
According to the communiqué, currently available visual prostheses intervene in the eye. Although these could provide some relief for certain eye diseases, they have not yet achieved a breakthrough.
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