Bionic synapses for retinal prostheses to restore sight to people with diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration: achieving them is the goal of the European project HyVIS, funded with 3 million for 4 years and coordinated by Italy, by Eisabetta Colombo of the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT).
The project, which involves important European research centers, including the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and the French Sorbonne, was created to try to tackle some serious and widespread eye diseases. It is estimated that only 280 million people affected by age-related macular degeneration (DMLE) will be in the world in 2040, with a cost of treatment of over 400 billion.
Dmle in the initial stages, as well as retinitis pigmentosa, is a disorder that affects the photoreceptors, that is the cells that receive the light signal and through the synapses with the neurons of the retina transmit it to the optic nerve.
Despite this, however, the neurons of the retina remain functional. The goal of HyVIS is therefore to connect these neurons still operating through ‘bionic’ synapses to new receptors capable of activating themselves when they receive light stimuli. A double challenge: on the one hand to be able to distribute new receptors for light signals on the retina, able to partially mimic those of the retina, on the other hand to connect them to neurons through new synaptic connections.
Not only: “HyVIS – explains Colombo – will allow to restore the physiological activation of the neurons of the internal retina with a very high spatial resolution”. The goal is in fact to ensure that a resolution similar to that of natural vision can be reached.
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Source From: Ansa
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