Research carried out by an international scientists, with the participation of Dr Andrzej Foik from the International Centre for Eye Research (ICTER), which is part of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, may help develop therapies to slow vision loss.
Retinal degeneration is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. The visual functions of the retina, midbrain and visual cortex were looked at by a team of researchers with Andrzej Foik from the ICTER. The results of their study were published in eNeuro.
The most common forms of retinal degeneration are macular degeneration and pigmentary retinopathy.
‘Our data suggest that in the early stages of retinopathy, the visual pathway becomes hyperactive,’ says Dr Foik. Previous studies have shown that very high daily doses of vitamin A (15 000 IU/d) can slow the progression of retinopathy by about 2% per year, but such an intervention needs to be well thought out because vitamin A is not inert to the liver.
With future research, it will be possible to identify who is at risk of retinopathy before the disease starts to manifest itself.
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