Blind Cats Recieve Occular Implants

A microchip the width of a pencil eraser shows promise in helping blind cats see again.

Starting in July, Kristina Narfstrom, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia implanted the microchips into the eyes of 11 Persian cats, half of which were severely visually impaired or blind.
Preliminary follow-up showed the microchips were working well and the cats are healthy.

A small percentage of Persian cats suffer a hereditary eye disease, in which the light-detecting cells in the retina don’t develop and render the cats blind at just weeks-old.
Narfstrom also studies Abyssinian cats with a retinal disease very similar to a human retinal disease that affects about 1.5 million people worldwide and which eventually leads to blindness.


SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

A very interesting technology, one that I hope gains headway.

Normally I would be against animal testing, but this is not a dan-
erous technology, and has improved the lives of the cats involved.

Hopefully in the near future a technology like this can be used in
humans, allowing the blind to see.

Comments, Opinions?

Well, curing blindness can't be a bad thing... so I'm in favour of that. Hopefully with progress we can move to curing blindness in other species, as well.

In regards to the animal testing, I too am usually against that, although I do support the minimum necessary animal testing for things like medical technology, where the benefits are greater than the damage done.

Starting in July, Kristina Narfstrom, a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Missouri-Columbia implanted the microchips into the eyes of 11 Persian cats, half of which were severely visually impaired or blind.

Like here, I'm not too clear why they had to implant half the cats, the half that had no visual problems. I suppose this is to rule out any kind of placebo or experimental bias, I guess.

with some modifications to the chips, they could include low-light vision.. heat vision.. perhaps even night vision (ie. the green stuff) with the aid of a light... splinter cell in your head instead of big ugly goggles ^_^