Thanks to a microchip the size of a pencil eraser, a vet at the University of Missouri-Columbia is helping blind cats see again. The scientific advancement that involves no wires and little trauma to its patients is now being tried on humans.
Digital Journal — In the summer of 2006, veterinary ophthalmologist Kristina Narfstrom implanted chips into 11 Persian cats. Half of the cats were severly visually impared or blind, as a small percentage of the breed suffer from an eye disease where the light-detecting cells in the retina fail to develop. The hereditary disease leaves kittens blind when they are only weeks old.
But the good news is, initial follow-ups with Narfstrom are promising, as the microchips seem to be working well.
“The good thing about this device that we’re using is that it doesn’t have any wires to it,” Narfstrom told LiveScience. “So it’s like a small disk that is very inert and not so traumatic to the eye that we slide into the retina.”
The wireless implant gives this chip a big edge over previous generations. There is currently no cure for cat or human eye disease and most retinal implants developed to date have not worked as well as scientists hoped. Until now.
Cats eyes are very similar to those of humans is both size and anatomy: The retina is made up of three cell layers and the outer-most layer contains rods and cones used to capture incoming light. As light is captured it is changed into an electrical signal that is then sent to the optic never and the brain to create an image.
The new microchip implant is filled with thousands of “photodiodes” that take the light and produce a small electrical current in the retina, thus performing the job of the dead rods and cones.
Narfstrom’s study also looks at Abyssinian cats that have retinal diseases. Approximately 1.5 million humans suffer from a similar disease that eventually results in blindness. She hopes that doctors and surgeons will soon be able to use similar techniques and technology in humans. She says early tests have already been completed, with 30 humans having a chip implanted.
To see a video of this story, click here. To read LiveSciene’s full report, visit their website.
