Could the blind be cured?

[Welsh-Angel]

I watched the news a few days ago and read the Metro and it said that a university has tested a gene treatment on a blind human as it worked on mice.
It didn't say if the blind man was cured.

But do you think there is a true cure for blind people however they ended up that way?

[Jonathan]

Yeah i herd of this aswell, as of yet it is not a cure for 'full blindness' however scientists in japan have been able to grow light sensitive receptors for the retina for rats, and a man who had very poor eyesight is currently undergoing this treatment,

I herd the man on the radio a few mornings ago, he said that he was told the operation had gone well and that he should notice and improvemnt in his eyesight within the next few weeks,

In responce to your question i think the answer is yes, the eye like the rest of the body is just a bundle of tissues and fluids, over time with DNA i don't think there will be any physical defect we can not fix, i.e. blindness, deafness, loss of movement in legs ect

[Reuben]

i've heard rumours about it. that they've been able to make some blind people see again but for only a short ammount of time. that's just what i heard though.

[Ryan]

Is it not to the point of just seeing pixels, much like zooming in on an image to about 5000%? I was under the impression that this was just a camera attached to the optic nerve and transmitted very very low quality images to the brain?

[Gantidge]

Yeh, that's what I hears too. And who knows what we might cure next? We've cured some seemingly-impossible problems before. I don't think though that we will ever cure blindness; ie. returning natural sight, but I see no reason why in the near future these camera thingies wouldn't work. We've created bionic arms, legs, livers and hearts; why not eyes?

[Welsh-Angel]

i think being able to see is important but for those who can't see....well don't SEE the world the way we do, they have to rely on their other senses, they live their lives quite differently but they are still human.

[Philosobassist]

Short answer to the question: no. This is because 'blind' means totally blind, and all the sources seem to imply that is irreversible.
Secondly (if I may be philosophically definitionistic) 'cured' means 'removed (of an illness of impairment) and returned to a natural state' i.e. not bionic or mechanical. Basically a bionic arm is not a 'cure', if you get me. Therefore, even if some form of 'bionic eye' (Gantidge) could be achieved I (personally) would not call it a cure.

However as for the partially sighted. yes I think there is potential for cure there, as long as there is something to work with (i.e. the 'partial' bit).

Edit: sorry for being incredibly picky and definitionistic (that's my word, don't steal it )in the above; for reasons too tedious to explain I was in full-on 'challenge' mode upon posting

[Gantidge]

Fine. A bionic eye could 'aid' people? And I think you could help the totally blind, as often the problem is in the data-collecting optics system. All a bionic eye would have to send similar data to the brain in place of the eye, you know, shock the brain in the right sequence.

[Philosobassist]

But if someone had been totally blind, say, from birth would the brain after the years be capable of light interpretation?

[Gantidge]

Did you not watch Dr Who??

If we can awaken long-lost genes in our DNA, creating huge, Resi 4-esque monsters, then surely we can awaken simple areas in the brain?

[Welsh-Angel]

I mentioned nothing bionic being curing  i meant genes, DNA but i guess its good to aid. Wouldn't this bionic eye have to be connected to the brain or something though? Would that affect the brain like side-effects?

[Philosobassist]

That's what I thought. It would be like transfusing the wrong bloodtype and it being rejected. The brain might reject this new 'component'.

[Gantidge]

But unlike blood, how much variation is there in the human brain. Obviously the brain is the last possible thing that could be simplified, but it would involve sending an electrical signal to a specific part of the brain in the correct order. There's a reason why the machinery would be so complex and take so long to install.

Maybe if you went down to Dodgey Dave's All-Purpose Bionic Organs, you might get a devise that ends up microwaving your brain. But they wouldn't give you a bionic eye unless they were sure it wouldn't harm you. So previded they do invent one, I don't think there would be any rejections of this sort, becasue I have enough faith in the scientists and doctors in this world not to give me a cueball instead of an eye.

[Philosobassist]

But unlike blood, how much variation is there in the human brain.

You're right, there's a lot more. Ever wondered why everyone's different? The difference in brain activity is at present the best explanation.

[Gantidge]

But the grey matter that makes up the optical sense must be very similar across the human race, or even identical, maybe even the same as some other animals. If science was trying to create 'The Ultimate Personality' I would agree with you. But in this sense, I would not have thought that variation in brain activity would be enough of an issue not to have a bionic eye, unless you had something wrong with your brain.