Unfortunately, for patients who lose all sight, blindness is irreversible because the optic nerve is damaged.
For instance, inflammation in the optic nerve can signal problems in an otherwise healthy, young person.
The boy, called Harvey, was born with a condition called optic nerve hypoplasia.
BBC: Jordan's two-year-old son Harvey (centre) was born blind
You may need additional procedures or treatments, as the opening sometimes heals over or other changes occur in your optic nerve.
In Boston, a blind man recently visited the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and had a lens wired directly to his optic nerve.
The form of glaucoma, known as open-angle, is the most common form of the disease, and involves mounting pressure on the optic nerve.
The Argus 2 requires an external power supply paired with external hardware, like goggles that collect pictures and send them directly to the optic nerve.
The camera sends images to the electrodes, essentially bypassing the damaged retina and tapping into the optic nerve that signals the brain to "see" images.
This travels into the brain along an optic nerve (there is one for each eye) to arrive at one of two small clusters of nerve cells called the lateral geniculate bodies.
And since optic nerve damage is one of the first recognizable symptoms of MS, doctors have a chance to identify the disease potentially before the patient suffers the physical limitations generally associated with its advanced stages.
The artificial retina is composed by neuronal photoreceptors, called cones and rods, which capture light signals and transform them in electrical signals, transferring them to the retinal ganglion cells and, through the optic nerve, to the brain.
He cautions that optic nerve damage can point to a number of diseases and is not a unique diagnostic tool for MS. However, he says, it certainly sends up a flag suggesting that MS might be present.
If the optic disc, a portion of the optic nerve, is swollen, and the patient has symmetrical decreased field of vision, such as a decreased right visual field in both eyes, they may need an evaluation for a brain tumor a rare circumstance.
Doctors at Seattle Children's Hospital diagnosed an optic glioma, or a tumor growing around the nerve that connects the eye to the brain.
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