According to the charity Prevent Blindness, almost 20 million Americans suffer from a kind of macular degeneration, which ultimately leads to lowering or loss of vision in the central field (peripheral vision usually remains).

Unfortunately for sufferers, this and other retinal disorders ultimately cause damage to the photoreceptors in the retina, important cells for vision.

This can lead to a blurring of vision, blind spots, and struggles to take part in ordinary everyday activities like reading.

And most sadly of all for sufferers of these conditions, it can also make it difficult to recognize faces.

Despite the damage to the photoreceptors, the next cells in the visual chain don’t tend to be affected by these retinal disorders, meaning that they are in perfectly good working condition, but are unable to properly do their jobs since the photoreceptors aren’t functioning correctly.

This knowledge has led researchers to develop technology to bypass the photoreceptors, including an FDA-approved process of surgically implanting a miniscule camera into the eye, an invasive but largely effective process in reducing (but not curing) the effects of the condition.

But thanks to researchers at Brown University, we may be closer to a significantly less invasive procedure, that could help restore the vision of sufferers of retinal disorders.

And this technology all relies on nanoparticles of gold, injected into the retina, to stimulate vision in conjunction with a pair of specially designed, laser-equipped glasses, as National Institutes of Health researcher and Brown alumni Jiarui Nie explained in a statement:

“This is a new type of retinal prosthesis that has the potential to restore vision lost to retinal degeneration without requiring any kind of complicated surgery or genetic modification. We believe this technique could potentially transform treatment paradigms for retinal degenerative conditions.”

Though the nanoparticles have only so far been tested on mice who suffered from retinal disorders, the results of this study – which were recently published in the journal ACS Nano – are certainly promising, with the researchers finding that the nanoparticles successfully stimulate visual cells (in a similar way to photoreceptors) when the laser projected images at them.

Thanks to the laser beam comprising near-infrared light, which is not detected by the human eye, it wouldn’t be disruptive to a user’s peripheral vision.

And what’s more, this simple and non-invasive procedure does not seem to have any negative side effects, as Nie continued:

“We showed that the nanoparticles can stay in the retina for months with no major toxicity. And we showed that they can successfully stimulate the visual system. That’s very encouraging for future applications.”

Since the glasses would capture images, to be sent to the retina by the near-infrared laser, this retinal prosthesis could actually be much more effective than the current surgical technique. That’s because the gold nanoparticles will settle throughout the retina, meaning that the entire field of vision could be restored for a sufferer of a retinal disorder.

If the study continues to make progress, it could answer the prayers of millions worldwide.

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