A layer of "dark cells" in the retina that is responsible for maintaining the health of the light-sensing cells in our eyes has been imaged in a living retina for the first time.

Retinal detachment, a condition that afflicts about 10,000 Americans each year, puts an individual at risk for vision loss or blindness. In a new study in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading ophthalmologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center writes, however, that a high probability of reattachment and visual improvement is possible by using one of three currently available surgical techniques.

Many people who have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes develop retinopathy, a serious disorder that damages the eye's retina, the area of the back of the eye where images are focused and relayed to the brain's visual cortex.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have used gene therapy to restore useful vision to mice with degeneration of the light-sensing retinal rods and cones, a common cause of human blindness.

Anyone who has ever been examined for eye disease involving blood flow in the retinal capillaries—as people with diabetes routinely are to assess vision loss associated with their disease— remembers the test: the injection, the bright lights, the discomfort.

Preliminary research shows encouraging results with transplantation of retinal cells in patients with blindness caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a report in the August issue of American Journal of Ophthalmology.

Retinas in newborn mice appear perfectly fine without any help from tiny bits of genetic material called microRNAs except for one thing — the retinas do not work.

In a clinical trial at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, researchers from The University of Pennsylvania have used gene therapy to safely restore vision in three young adults with a rare form of congenital blindness. Although the patients have not achieved normal eyesight, the preliminary results set the stage for further studies of an innovative treatment for this and possibly other retinal diseases.

Harvard University researchers have discovered a new type of retinal cell that plays an exclusive and unusual role in mice: detecting upward motion. The cells reflect their function in the physical arrangement of their dendrites, branch-like structures on neuronal cells that form a communicative network with other dendrites and neurons in the brain.

Drawing blood from a fruit fly may only be slightly easier than getting it from a proverbial stone or turnip, but success could provide substantial benefits for neuroscientists.

Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute have discovered what chemical in the eye triggers the dormant capacity of certain non-neuronal cells to transform into progenitor cells, a stem-like cell that can generate new retinal cells.

USC and Second Sight Medical Products Inc, leading developers of retinal prostheses for treating blindness, announced today that they have completed enrollment of the first phase of a U.S .FDA approved clinical study of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System. They also announced that enrollment at key European sites is underway as studies continue in Mexico.