By Alan Mozes MONDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers
report they have developed in mice what they believe might one
day become a breakthrough for humans: a retinal prosthesis that
could restore near-normal sight to those who have lost their
vision. That would be a welcome development for the roughly 25
million people worldwide who are blind because of retinal
disease, most notably macular degeneration. The notion of using
prosthetics to combat blindness is not new, with prior efforts
involving retinal electrode implantation and/or gene therapy
restoring a limited ability to pick out spots and rough edges of
light. The current effort takes matters to a new level. The
scientists fashioned a prosthetic system packed with computer
chips that replicate the "neural impulse codes" the eye uses to
transmit light signals to the brain. "This is a unique approach
that hasn't really been explored before, and we're really very
excited about it," said study author Sheila Nirenberg, a
professor and computational ne