It was surprisingly simple. University of California, Berkeley, scientists inserted a gene for a green-light receptor into the eyes of blind mice and, a month later, they were navigating around obstacles as easily as mice ...
Mar 15, 2019
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National Eye Institute scientists led a collaborative study and zeroed in on genes associated with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss and blindness among people age 65 and older. These ...
Feb 11, 2019
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In a major step forward in the battle against macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered a critical trigger for the ...
Nov 27, 2017
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Scientists at LSU Health New Orleans' Neuroscience Center of Excellence, led by Nicolas Bazan, MD, Ph.D., Boyd Professor and Director, have identified a new mechanism that regulates a protein key for cell survival. It appears ...
Dec 18, 2023
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A team of scientists in Singapore has discovered new behavior in transplanted stem cell derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells, which could help treat Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes ...
Sep 25, 2023
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Video games could give ophthalmologists an easy window not into the soul, but into eye health and the eye-brain-body connection—the three-way reciprocal communication that influences our actions.
Sep 6, 2023
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Better diagnosis and treatment of the incurable eye disease age-related macular degeneration is a step closer, thanks to the discovery of new genetic signatures of the disease.
Jul 26, 2022
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Under the direction of Boyd Professor Nicolas Bazan, MD, Ph.D., scientists at LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence have developed a new, experimental human cell line from retinal pigment epithelial cells. ...
Jul 12, 2022
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As we age, so do our eyes; most commonly, this involves changes to our vision and new glasses, but there are more severe forms of age-related eye problems. One of these is age-related macular degeneration, which affects the ...
Jun 14, 2022
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Scientists at The University of Manchester have taken an important step towards finding a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common form of adult blindness in the developed world. The researchers ...
May 17, 2022
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Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a medical condition which usually affects older adults and results in a loss of vision in the center of the visual field (the macula) because of damage to the retina. It occurs in “dry” and “wet” forms. It is a major cause of blindness and visual impairment in older adults (>50 years). Macular degeneration can make it difficult or impossible to read or recognize faces, although enough peripheral vision remains to allow other activities of daily life.
Starting from the inside of the eye and going towards the back, the three main layers at the back of the eye are the retina, which contains the nerves; the choroid, which contains the blood supply; and the sclera, which is the white of the eye.
The macula is the central area of the retina, which provides the most detailed central vision.
In the dry (nonexudative) form, cellular debris called drusen accumulate between the retina and the choroid, and the retina can become detached. In the wet (exudative) form, which is more severe, blood vessels grow up from the choroid behind the retina, and the retina can also become detached. It can be treated with laser coagulation, and with medication that stops and sometimes reverses the growth of blood vessels.
Although some macular dystrophies affecting younger individuals are sometimes referred to as macular degeneration, the term generally refers to age-related macular degeneration (AMD or ARMD).
Age-related macular degeneration begins with characteristic yellow deposits (drusen) in the macula, between the retinal pigment epithelium and the underlying choroid. Most people with these early changes (referred to as age-related maculopathy) have good vision. People with drusen can go on to develop advanced AMD. The risk is considerably higher when the drusen are large and numerous and associated with disturbance in the pigmented cell layer under the macula. Recent research suggests that large and soft drusen are related to elevated cholesterol deposits and may respond to cholesterol-lowering agents.
This text uses material from Wikipedia licensed under CC BY-SA
