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Gene therapy restores vision

28.07.2019

Thanks to a new gene therapy that targets specific cells in the eye, scientists have been able to restore sight to blind mice for the first time. A team of neuroscientists developed a treatment that reactivated the Cngb1 gene. In the "off" state, it causes the destruction of the light-sensitive rods of the retina.

By restoring cells, geneticists restored the ability of damaged eyes to respond to light, formed stable connections with the nerves connecting the eye to the brain.

In some experiments, the researchers tested groups of three blind mice. When the researchers quantified the sensitivity of retinal ganglion cells after treatment, they compared cells from five genetically treated mice with cells from three healthy mice and three others who were blind.

At first glance, we are talking about a very small number of "test subjects", but they were quite enough for scientists to understand the behavior of individual cells and obtain a huge amount of scientific information for further analysis.

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Language influences thinking from infancy 02.08.2016

Usually we think that language only reflects the features of our vision, our thoughts and feelings. But can language itself influence our thinking?

The question arises at what age the influence of language on thinking first manifests itself. And, it would seem, the answer suggests itself that this happens in childhood, when the child learns to speak. Researchers from Northwestern University agree with this point of view, but with one caveat - according to their data, language begins to influence consciousness even before a person pronounces his first word.

Nine-month-olds, who were not yet able to speak, were shown brightly colored creatures that, appearing randomly in the middle of the screen, ran either to the left or right, and then disappeared. The essence of the experiment was that the "population" of beings was designated either by one word or by two words, and in the latter case one word was intended for those who move in one direction, and the other for those who move in the other direction. These words were heard by the children watching the creatures.

Then came the turn of the second part of the experiment: multi-colored creatures again appeared in the center of the screen, and psychologists carefully watched with the help of special equipment, where the children would look. In the direction of the child's gaze, one could understand what he expected from the creature - that it would move to the left or to the right. The point here was to understand whether there was a connection between the verbal categories denoting "right" beings and "left" beings, and thinking. The connection really appeared: those children who learned two categories predicted the movement of the figures quite well; but those who heard only one name common to all, could not predict the direction of movement.

It follows that even in the process of initial language acquisition and even before a person himself learns to speak, language categories affect both our perception and the ability to work and analyze what we managed to perceive.

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