The mind's eye

April 19, 2002 8:27 AM

The mind's eye becomes literal as a potential cure for Parkinsons.
posted by srboisvert (7 comments total)

That's wonderful. But they didn't say where the cells came from. Were they from the patient? Or a donor?

*a knock at the door*

"Hi! I'm Michael J. Fox, and I need your eyeball..."
posted by groundhog at 9:18 AM on April 19, 2002

This treatment looks more promising in my eyes.
posted by amphigory at 9:27 AM on April 19, 2002

That's wonderful. But they didn't say where the cells came from. Were they from the patient? Or a donor?

Actually, they did say:

"The retinal cells used in Watts' study were taken from deceased donors and grown in the lab. A total of about 325,000 cells, attached to the microcarriers, were injected into five different regions of the striatum in each patient."

And in the stem cell study also discussed, the patient's own stem cells were used.
posted by Skot at 9:33 AM on April 19, 2002

Whoops. I gotta get new progressive lenses. These are behaving more like progressive filters.
posted by groundhog at 10:05 AM on April 19, 2002

"This is the first human intracerebral retinal cell implantation study in the world..."

Yeah, so, there ya go.
posted by Eamon at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2002

And then there's deep-brain stimulation, where the docs implant something like a pacemaker in the brain. They're getting good results with this, and claiming that its efficacy may go beyond movement disorders. They say it might be a cure for pain and psychiatric diseases as well -- including intractable depression.
posted by Faze at 1:30 PM on April 19, 2002

Yet another reason to sneak into the morgue and eat peoples eyes, as if I needed one.
posted by Settle at 6:43 PM on April 19, 2002