Eye Care News

December 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Paranoia May Be, in Part, a Visual Problem

Dec. 17, 2024 — Could complex beliefs like paranoia have roots in something as basic as vision? A new study finds evidence that they might. When completing a visual perception task, in which participants had to identify whether one moving dot was chasing another ...

New Virtual Reality-Tested System Shows Promise in Aiding Navigation of People With Blindness or Low Vision

Dec. 17, 2024 — A new study offers hope for people who are blind or have low vision (pBLV) through an innovative navigation system that was tested using virtual reality. The system, which combines vibrational and ...

DNA Damage Is Key Factor in Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Dec. 3, 2024 — A research team has discovered that accumulated DNA damage in the retina is a key contributor to age-related macular degeneration and that targeting specific retinal cell types may lead to treatments that slow or stop ...

Preclinical Tests Show mRNA-Based Treatments Effective for Blinding Condition

Nov. 27, 2024 — A new study found that a novel mRNA-based therapy that targets a protein called RUNX1 may be able to prevent blindness and scarring from proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR), a disease caused by a ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:55pm EST

Combined Screening Can Detect Liver Damage in Diabetes Patients

Dec. 13, 2024 — New research highlights the possibility of screening people with type 2 diabetes for liver damage at the same time as they undergo screening for eye ...

Listening for Early Signs of Alzheimer's Disease

Nov. 20, 2024 — People with Alzheimer's exhibit a loss of motor control along with cognitive decline, and one of the earliest signs of this decay can be spotted in involuntary eye movements known as saccades. These ...

New Insights Into Sleep Uncover Key Mechanisms Related to Cognitive Function

Nov. 22, 2024 — While it's well known that sleep enhances cognitive performance, the underlying neural mechanisms, particularly those related to nonrapid eye ...

New Model of Neuronal Circuit Provides Insight on Eye Movement

Nov. 22, 2024 — Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes' gaze. The study found that a simplified artificial ...

Trial Shows Alcohol-Mimicking Medication Can Give Laryngeal Dystonia Patients Back Their Voice

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers have led a clinical trial of a drug that mimics the effects of alcohol in more than 100 patients with laryngeal dystonia, a neurological ...

Brain-Based Visual Impairment in Children

Nov. 19, 2024 — Experts have identified five elements of a brain-based condition that has emerged as a leading cause of vision impairment starting in childhood in the United States and other industrialized nations. ...

Synthetic Cells Emulate Natural Cellular Communication

Nov. 12, 2024 — A research team has succeeded in synthesizing simple, environmentally sensitive cells complete with artificial organelles. For the first time, the researchers have also been able to emulate natural ...

'Sleepy Cannabis': Cannabinol Increases Sleep, Study Suggests

Nov. 11, 2024 — Research shows that a non-hallucinogenic marijuana constituent increases both REM and non-REM sleep in rats. Human trials are now under ...

Disruption of Visual Stability

Nov. 7, 2024 — A research team has been investigating the question of how we perceive a stable environment despite constant eye movements. The result: rapid and smooth eye movements are based on different ...

Why Some Patients Don't Respond Well to Wet Macular Degeneration Treatment

Nov. 4, 2024 — A new study explains not only why some patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (or 'wet' AMD) fail to have vision improvement with treatment, but also how an experimental drug could be ...

Subtle Eye Movements Optimize Vision

Oct. 29, 2024 — Our ability to see starts with the light-sensitive photoreceptor cells in our eyes. A specific region of the retina, termed fovea, is responsible for sharp vision. Here, the color-sensitive cone ...

AI Eye to Eye With Ophthalmologists in Diagnosing Corneal Infections, Study Finds

Oct. 22, 2024 — Eye care specialists could see artificial intelligence help in diagnosing infectious keratitis (IK), a leading cause of corneal blindness worldwide, as a new study finds that deep learning models ...

Targeting 'Undruggable' Diseases: New Levels of Detail in Targeted Protein Degradation

Oct. 11, 2024 — Targeted protein degradation has opened up a new field of drug discovery with potential to treat previously 'undruggable' diseases. The work means new drugs can be much more accurately ...

Medicare Prior Authorization Affecting Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Didn't Have Hoped-for Effect

Oct. 9, 2024 — A new policy increased wait time for patients, but didn't speed up the move from hospital-based to outpatient-based ...

Stem Cell Transplants Close Macular Holes in Monkeys

Oct. 3, 2024 — Human stem cell transplants successfully repaired macular holes in a monkey model, researchers report. After transplantation, the macular holes were closed by continuous filling of the space with ...

Researchers Use AI to Help People See More Clearly

Oct. 2, 2024 — A serious, irreversible eye disease known as myopic maculopathy is on the ...

New Research Offers Hope for Preventing Age-Related Blindness

Oct. 2, 2024 — Researchers have identified a protein involved in the early stages of AMD and found that blocking its activity could reduce the formation of drusen, the lipid deposits in the retina that are a ...

When Detecting Depression, the Eyes Have It

Sep. 30, 2024 — It has been estimated that nearly 300 million people, or about 4% of the global population, are afflicted by some form of depression. But detecting it can be difficult, particularly when those ...

Scientists Discover Gene Responsible for Rare, Inherited Eye Disease

Sep. 26, 2024 — Scientists have identified a gene responsible for some inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), which are a group of disorders that damage the eye's light-sensing retina and threatens vision. Though ...

Homemade 'Play-Putty' Can Read the Body's Electric Signals

Sep. 18, 2024 — Researchers demonstrates the effectiveness of homemade play putty at reading brain, heart, muscle and eye activity. The research outlines the conductive properties of this material, so-named ...

Studies Point to Potential Development of a Cataract Drug

Sep. 18, 2024 — Researchers identified a protein, known as RNF114, that reverses cataracts, a clouding of the eye's lens that occurs commonly in people as they age. The study, which was conducted in the ...

Two Common Surgeries Equally Effective for Treating Blinding Condition of the Eyelid

Sep. 17, 2024 — Trachomatous trichiasis, a potentially blinding condition where inward-turned eyelashes scratch the front of the eye, can successfully be treated by either of the two most common types of eyelid ...

New Gene Therapy Offers Promise for Treating Glaucoma -- As Well as AMD

Sep. 9, 2024 — Scientists developed a highly promising gene therapy to treat glaucoma -- a debilitating eye condition that can lead to complete vision loss, and which affects around 80 million people worldwide. The ...

100x Improvement in Sight Seen After Gene Therapy Trial

Sep. 6, 2024 — The vision of people with a rare inherited condition that causes them to lose much of their sight early in childhood was 100 times better after they received gene therapy to address the genetic ...

New Technology 'Lights Up' Bacteria in Wounds for Better Infection Prevention

Aug. 27, 2024 — New research suggests there may be a more effective method to detect bacteria during wound ...

Declining Senses Can Impact Mental Health and Loneliness in Aging Adults

Aug. 22, 2024 — Researchers found that people who develop sensory disabilities with age tend to have worse mental health, and that different types of sensory disability are associated with different aspects of ...

How Cell Nuclei Organize Eyes and Brain

Aug. 12, 2024 — In work conducted both at UC Santa Barbara and the Physics of Life Excellence Cluster of TU Dresden, biophysicist Otger Camp s and his research group have found that cell nuclei control the ...

Dozing at the Wheel? Not With These Fatigue-Detecting Earbuds

Aug. 6, 2024 — To help protect drivers and machine operators from the dangers of drifting off, engineers have created prototype earbuds that can detect the signs of drowsiness in the brain. In a new study, the ...

New Visual Technique Could Advance Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Aug. 6, 2024 — Researchers developed a new visual diagnostic technique that can be used to advance early detection for neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease and similar diseases that affect ...

A Brain Fingerprint: Study Uncovers Unique Brain Plasticity in People Born Blind

July 30, 2024 — Neuroscientists reveal that the part of the brain that receives and processes visual information in sighted people develops a unique connectivity pattern in people born blind. They say this pattern ...