April 16 2000                                          BRITAIN







   Eyes rewired to ears in the brain could let the blind see 







 THE blind and brain-damaged could eventually benefit from

 a radical new therapy after researchers announced they can

 now rewire the mind, writes Jonathan Leake. 



 Studies have shown that connecting the eyes to the part of

 the brain that controls hearing can restore vision. The work,

 so far done only on animals, suggests that if doctors can

 re-route nerve impulses away from injured areas they may

 be able to restore lost functions. 



 The research, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 (MIT), involved surgically "rewiring" the brains of very young

 mammals so that signals from the eye were sent to the

 auditory cortex, which normally deals with hearing. 



 The animals soon learnt to see again, although not as well as

 before, according to Mriganka Sur, professor and head of

 brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. 



 He said the research could lead to treating brain disorders

 that cause blindness. 



 "This is a profound discovery that addresses age-old

 questions about whether the brain is genetically programmed

 or shaped by the environment," he said. "It shows the ability

 of the developing brain to adapt to environmental changes." 



 Previous research had shown that in people who were blind

 from birth, the visual cortex in the brain assumed new

 functions. 



 It is also well known that visual deprivation early in life alters

 the way brain pathways develop. The MIT team reasoned

 that this could mean the brain was flexible enough to adapt to

 surgical rewiring. 



 Details of how they achieved the rewiring will be revealed in

 a paper to be published in Nature, the science journal. 



 "Connections between cells are the key to brain function. By

 altering the input to the tissue, the connections changed," said

 Sur. 



 The researchers confirmed their results by training animals to

 respond in certain ways to light stimuli. 



 After rewiring, the animals showed similar responses, even

 though the impulses from their eyes were going to a different

 part of the brain. 



                 jonathan.leake@sunday-times.co.uk 





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