Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have developed a method that could restore sight to people suffering from amblyopia, commonly known as 'lazy eye'. The method involves rebooting the retina to its initial state, allowing it to grow and heal naturally. The scientists found that temporarily anesthetizing the retina of the eye can restore the visual system to its original state and treat amblyopia. This condition occurs when vision does not develop properly in one or both eyes during childhood, causing the brain to learn to ignore one eye. Current studies indicate that available treatments only work in early childhood when neural connections are forming, making the new discovery a significant step towards treating adults with this condition. In an experiment on mice, the research team anesthetized the retina of the eye affected by amblyopia for a few days. They found that the brain's visual response to that eye recovered even in adulthood. When comparing the treated mice to a control group, it was revealed that the proportion of neural signals coming from the treated eye increased to match the inputs from the healthy eye, suggesting that the treatment 'rebooted' the affected eye. Mark Bear, lead author of the study published in the journal Cell Reports, explained that it is possible to disable the lazy eye, which performs few functions, and bring it back to life while preserving vision in the healthy eye. The scientists focused on a network of brain neurons called the lateral geniculate nucleus, which transmits information from the eyes to the visual cortex where vision is processed. Previous research had shown that blocking signals from the retina causes neurons to fire synchronized bursts of electrical signals to the visual cortex, and the new study proved that these bursts could be the key to treating amblyopia.
