Changes of function in the visual cortex after blindness and regeneration

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K15729
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Ophthalmology
• Research Institution: Iwate University
• Principal Investigator: Tomita Hiroshi 岩手大学, 理工学部, 教授 (40302088)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 菅野 江里子 岩手大学, 理工学部, 准教授 (70375210) ; 田端 希多子 岩手大学, 理工学部, 特任研究員 (80714576)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 視覚再生 / 遺伝子治療 / オプトジェネティクス / 視覚野

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We demonstrated that the visual cortex became to work as a part of the auditory cortex after the blindness. To evaluate the function of visual cortex in blind rats after restoring vision by transducing mVChR1 gene, we recorded the visually evoked potentials with a stimuli of white noise or light. We could still record the auditory response in the visual cortex in rats restored vision, and there is no significance of the recorded responses between in blind and vision-restored rats. These results indicated that the functional change of visual cortex was kept after the vision restoration. We might develop the method to accelerate the brain plasticity.

Free Research Field

眼科学