According to psychologists at the University of California, Riverside, just one week of training by repeatedly performing a perceptual-learning task can improve the vision of the elderly to be comparable to young adults.

“Our research indicates that the visual system of the elderly retains a high degree of plasticity and demonstrates that training methods can be used to improve visual function,” says John G. Andersen, who co-authored the study.

Subjects were shown a striped visual stimulus and asked to determine if the image had been rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise. Researchers compared the results of 16 young adults (average age of 22) and 16 older adults (average age of 71) in 750 trials a day over a seven day period. After seven days the older adults showed enough improvement in near-vision acuity to eliminate the difference between the two groups.

It is not yet known if the effects of visual training lead to improvement in real-world tasks, such as driving.

Further information: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/boosting-older-adults-vision-through-training.html

Pittsburgh University researchers have succeeded in transforming stem cells from wisdom teeth into corneal cells in mice. These cells could be used to repair corneal scarring and offer a potential future treatment for corneal blindness, a condition affecting millions worldwide.

Corneal blindness is typically treated with transplants but rejection of donor tissue and a shortage of donor corneas present potential issues. “Our work is promising, because they use the patient’s own cells for the treatment, which reduces the risk of encountering these problems,” says Fatima Syed-Picard, who led the study.

Dental pulp stem cells may also be used to regrow other tissues such as nerves and bone in future regenerative therapies.

Further information: http://www.upmc.com/media/NewsReleases/2015/Pages/wisdom-teeth-stem-cells-corneal.aspx

A research team at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona has developed a new iPad application that can screen for visual contrast loss in Parkinson’s patients.

Patients with Parkinson’s disease may experience a number of eye problems either as a symptom of the disease itself or as a side effect of medication. These problems include blurred vision, dry eyes, involuntary closure of the eyelids (blepharospasms) and loss of contrast and colour sensitivity.

Because patients with Parkinson’s disease often have normal high-contrast vision, a reduction in low-contrast visual acuity is often missed by routine eye exams. An iPad version of a variable-contrast acuity chart was shown to the patients at close (40 cm) and far (2 m) distances. Parkinson’s patients had significantly worse vision for the low-contrast images at both distances than control subjects.

The degree of a patient’s low-contrast visual deficiency correlates to the severity of Parkinson’s disease, which suggests that these visual tests could serve as a method for diagnosing Parkinson’s and measuring the effectiveness of treatments.

Further information: http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=150140&CultureCode=en

Eyelashes are the first line of defense for the eyes, shielding them from windborne particles like dust or pollen. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology used a wind tunnel that determined the best optimal, lash length is one-third the width of the eye.

Shorter eyelashes do not offer enough protection, while longer eyelashes actually channel air currents towards the eye. Lashes that are just right will minimize the number of particles hitting the eye.

Eye lashes the length of one third the eye’s width were found in at least 22 species of mammals including humans, giraffes and hedgehogs.

These findings could help create artificial eyelashes out of filaments to protect sensitive electronics in dusty environments.

Further information: http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/105/20141294