Dataset Information

A fully organic retinal prosthesis restores vision in a rat model of degenerative blindness.

ABSTRACT: The degeneration of photoreceptors in the retina is one of the major causes of adult blindness in humans. Unfortunately, no effective clinical treatments exist for the majority of retinal degenerative disorders. Here we report on the fabrication and functional validation of a fully organic prosthesis for long-term in vivo subretinal implantation in the eye of Royal College of Surgeons rats, a widely recognized model of retinitis pigmentosa. Electrophysiological and behavioural analyses reveal a prosthesis-dependent recovery of light sensitivity and visual acuity that persists up to 6-10 months after surgery. The rescue of the visual function is accompanied by an increase in the basal metabolic activity of the primary visual cortex, as demonstrated by positron emission tomography imaging. Our results highlight the possibility of developing a new generation of fully organic, highly biocompatible and functionally autonomous photovoltaic prostheses for subretinal implants to treat degenerative blindness.

SUBMITTER: Maya-Vetencourt JF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5446789 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A fully organic retinal prosthesis restores vision in a rat model of degenerative blindness.

Maya-Vetencourt José Fernando JF Ghezzi Diego D Antognazza Maria Rosa MR Colombo Elisabetta E Mete Maurizio M Feyen Paul P Desii Andrea A Buschiazzo Ambra A Di Paolo Mattia M Di Marco Stefano S Ticconi Flavia F Emionite Laura L Shmal Dmytro D Marini Cecilia C Donelli Ilaria I Freddi Giuliano G Maccarone Rita R Bisti Silvia S Sambuceti Gianmario G Pertile Grazia G Lanzani Guglielmo G Benfenati Fabio F

Nature materials 20170306 6

The degeneration of photoreceptors in the retina is one of the major causes of adult blindness in humans. Unfortunately, no effective clinical treatments exist for the majority of retinal degenerative disorders. Here we report on the fabrication and functional validation of a fully organic prosthesis for long-term in vivo subretinal implantation in the eye of Royal College of Surgeons rats, a widely recognized model of retinitis pigmentosa. Electrophysiological and behavioural analyses reveal a ...[more]

PMID: 28250420

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Project description:There have been relatively few attempts to represent vision or blindness ontologically. This is unsurprising as the related phenomena of sight and blindness are difficult to represent ontologically for a variety of reasons. Blindness has escaped ontological capture at least in part because: blindness or the employment of the term 'blindness' seems to vary from context to context, blindness can present in a myriad of types and degrees, and there is no precedent for representing complex phenomena such as blindness.We explore current attempts to represent vision or blindness, and show how these attempts fail at representing subtypes of blindness (viz., color blindness, flash blindness, and inattentional blindness). We examine the results found through a review of current attempts and identify where they have failed.By analyzing our test cases of different types of blindness along with the strengths and weaknesses of previous attempts, we have identified the general features of blindness and vision. We propose an ontological solution to represent vision and blindness, which capitalizes on resources afforded to one who utilizes the Basic Formal Ontology as an upper-level ontology.The solution we propose here involves specifying the trigger conditions of a disposition as well as the processes that realize that disposition. Once these are specified we can characterize vision as a function that is realized by certain (in this case) biological processes under a range of triggering conditions. When the range of conditions under which the processes can be realized are reduced beyond a certain threshold, we are able to say that blindness is present. We characterize vision as a function that is realized as a seeing process and blindness as a reduction in the conditions under which the sight function is realized. This solution is desirable because it leverages current features of a major upper-level ontology, accurately captures the phenomenon of blindness, and can be implemented in many domain-specific ontologies.

Dataset Information

A fully organic retinal prosthesis restores vision in a rat model of degenerative blindness.

Publications

A fully organic retinal prosthesis restores vision in a rat model of degenerative blindness.

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