[HN Gopher] Doctors complete first successful face and whole-eye...
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       Doctors complete first successful face and whole-eye transplant
        
       Author : LinuxBender
       Score  : 46 points
       Date   : 2023-11-09 19:25 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
        
       | supermatou wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       | https://www.ft.com/content/a36bc9ed-f475-4ca8-9c87-3fa2d109f...
        
       | blakesterz wrote:
       | Wow, I didn't know that eye transplants were so close to being a
       | thing! That's amazing for blind people.                 While it
       | is still unknown whether he will regain sight, since the May 2023
       | procedure, the transplanted left eye has shown remarkable signs
       | of health, including direct blood flow to the retina--the area at
       | the back of the eye that receives light and sends images to the
       | brain. Although many questions remain in a case with no
       | precedence, this groundbreaking achievement opens new
       | possibilities for future advancements in vision therapies and
       | related medical fields.
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | "Oh Chew, if only you could see what I've seen... with your
       | eyes."
        
       | cma wrote:
       | > The entire left eye and optic nerve were transplanted, and stem
       | cells from the donor's bone marrow were transplanted along with
       | them in the hopes of helping the optic nerve regenerate.
       | 
       | If the axons in the optic nerve bundle somewhat randomly connect,
       | is the brain able to adjust to that and re-learn how to see?
       | Seems it may have been done in animals successfully?
        
         | Pulcinella wrote:
         | I would assume that is what happens with babies. Unless human
         | development is that deterministic down to the cellular location
         | level, I would imagine that rod/cone neurons are wired somewhat
         | randomly and the brain spends months sorting out that neuron
         | pathway #16384948 corresponds to the cone(x: 1340, y: 960,
         | .leftEye) while pathway #16380021 corresponds to rod(x: 1280,
         | y:720, .rightEye). But I have no clue so maybe I am completely
         | wrong.
        
           | wizzwizz4 wrote:
           | > _the brain spends months sorting out that neuron pathway_
           | 
           | Yup: but unfortunately, this is one of those things that
           | seems to have a "critical period". (We know this because of
           | experiments on poor defenceless kittens. Thanks, science!
           | (But, I mean, it's decades later and it's got actual medical
           | applications now, and we don't have to re-run the experiments
           | because the results were all written down, so... maybe we
           | _should_ actually thank science for this one.))
        
             | altruios wrote:
             | Until we need to figure out how to reintroduce that
             | 'critical period' property at our will.
        
         | rngname22 wrote:
         | I'm not biologist and have no idea if its directly relevant to
         | this procedure, but perhaps this work by Michael Levin's lab
         | could make this hope more optimistic:
         | 
         | https://www.popsci.com/tadpole-eyeball-graft/
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-09 23:00 UTC)