This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: An international research team has developed microscopic particles that can make blind retinas respond to light. The particles act as tiny light receptors.
Researchers inject them into the eye, where they settle close to nerve cells in the retina. When light hits the particles, it triggers electrical and chemical processes that can activate the nerve cells and prompt them to send signals toward the brain. In experiments with blind mice, the researchers were able to detect light-induced signals in the visual cortex of the brain and observe behavioral responses to light.
They also showed that the technology can activate nerve cells in retinal tissue from pigs. The findings, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, mark a new chapter in a research project that began at Aarhus University seven years ago with an ambitious idea: Could researchers develop a kind of microscopic "solar cell" that could be placed inside the body and use light to control cellular activity? "When we started, our fundamental question was whether we could create a material that could act as a wireless interface between light and living cells.
We can now see that the particles are able to activate nerve cells in blind retinas. That brings us closer to our long-term goal of developing a new type of retinal prosthesis," says Menglin Chen, associate professor at the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering at Aarhus University. To understand how the technology works, we need to look at the back of the eye.
This is where the retina is located. Its light-sensitive photoreceptors normally capture light and initiate the signals that the brain uses to create vision. In retinitis pigmentosa, these photoreceptors gradually degenerate.
Other nerve cells and connections within the retina, however, can remain intact. The researchers aim to make use of these surviving cells. The nanoparticles are made from the light-sensitive semiconductor graphitic carbon nitride and measure around 300 nanometers in diameter.
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