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| Retina Image from Bing |
The number of Americans with visual impairment or blindness is expected to exceed 8 million by the year 2050.
With the youngest baby boomers reaching the age of 65 by 2029, age-related eye diseases and conditions are expected to rise during the "silver tsunami."
According to medical experts, so many of the cases will be caused by retinal degenerative diseases, which are the progressive degeneration of your retina's light-sensitive photoreceptors.
According to these projections, there is an unmet demand for novel solutions to address vision loss caused by photoreceptor degenerative illnesses.
While there are currently no effective non-invasive treatments for the treatment of eyesight loss, USC researchers have devised a novel approach to address this rising problem.
Currently, ophthalmologists employ electronic technology to stimulate retinal neurons directly by implanting electrode devices into the eye, a procedure that is both costly and intrusive.
The Department of Biomedical Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering is working on a non-surgical method that could restore vision by employing one of the five senses.
Ultrasound Technology
"Ultrasound waves will be generated by a wearable ultrasound device to activate the retina." Researchers discovered that applying pressure to the eye can activate neurons and transmit messages to the brain, similar to how shapes and bright spots appear when you gently press on your eyeball with your eyes closed.
Qifa Zhou, a professor of biomedical engineering and ophthalmology at USC, described the technology as "revolutionary." "Right now, we're doing animal tests to see if we can substitute electric stimulation with ultrasound stimulation."
Zhou and Mark S. Humayun, a professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering at USC and one of the designers of Argus II, the world's first artificial retina, lead the study team.
"The method is favorable since it does not require surgery and there will be no device implanted within the body," said Gengxi Lu, a Ph.D. student in Zhou's group. "Ultrasound waves will be generated by a wearable ultrasound device to activate the retina."
Scientists found that applying pressure to the eye can activate neurons and transmit messages to the brain, similar to how shapes and bright spots appear when you gently press on your eyeball with your eyes closed.
Unlike a normal eye, which is stimulated by light, the blind eyes in this investigation were stimulated by mechanical forces produced by ultrasonic waves.
"Mechanically sensitive channels exist in the neurons of the retina of the eye that respond to mechanical stimulation," Lu added. "When we utilize ultrasound to induce mechanical pressure, these neurons are triggered."
How Does It Work?
The researchers at USC used high-frequency ultrasound waves that are inaudible to humans to stimulate a blind rat's eyes in preclinical experiments to evaluate this ultrasound method.
The equipment utilized in this study is similar to an ultrasound probe that sends and receives sound waves through a pregnant woman's stomach for baby imaging.
The study team constructed a small ultrasound device that can be directed at a specific location of the eye to send sound waves to the retina, which is located in the rear of the eye, in this case for retinal stimulation.
The study proved that when the ultrasonic waves are projected as a pattern — for example, the letter 'C' — the rat's brain can take up a similar pattern using these high-frequency sounds that can be controlled and focused on a specific location of the eye.
Researchers are unable to obtain direct responses about the rat's visual experiences during ultrasonic stimulation, unlike in humans.
The team used a multi-electrode array to detect visual activity directly from the rat's visual brain area, known as the visual cortex, to answer these questions about what the rat was able to observe from the ultrasonic waves.
Researchers discovered that the rat could detect visualizations similar to the ultrasonic stimulation pattern transmitted to the eye based on visual activities recorded from the brain. BME Frontiers recently published this piece.
The Present and the Future.
The National Eye Institute is now funding the research with a four-year, $2.3 million grant (NEI). To take their research to the next level, the team recently applied for another NEI translational grant.
Currently, rodent models are used in the majority of investigations. However, before performing human clinical trials, the team aims to test this strategy using nonhuman monkey models.
"Right now, we're sending ultrasonic impulses to the retina via a transducer placed in front of the rat's eyeball, but our ultimate goal is to construct a wireless lens transducer," Dr. Zhou explained.
While the team is now investigating the capabilities of ultrasound technology for vision research, its long-term goal is to develop crisper images and integrate an ultrasonic transducer into a wearable contact lens for next-generation technology.
This unique ultrasound technology is also the subject of a pending patent, which could transform the way visual impairment is treated in the future.
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