ARVO in Focus: Berberine and Pupil Power

Bolt from the blueA study has linked blue light exposure to AMD damage through a protein (ubiquitin-protein ligase E3D, UBE3D) associated with AMD in East Asian populations (1). UBE3D was also associated with DNA damage response in the study, which found that the AMD-associated V379 mutation might be causing oxidative damage, and therefore be a target for therapeutics.

Berberine dream
 

Researchers have determined that berberine (BBR), an extract produced by a traditional Chinese plant, has therapeutic activity to combat thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) (2). The study found that BBR had positive effects on adipogenesis, inflammation, hyaluronan production, and fibrosis. The work builds on recent findings of berberine’s effects on mechanisms of inflammation, fibrosis, and lipometabolism, and sets a foundation for the safe and affordable compound.

Pupil power
 

The pathogenesis of central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) is relatively unclear. But it is clear that CSC primarily affects middle-aged men under chronic stress, and is thought to arise from choroidal disturbances. To better understand, diagnose, and treat CSC, researchers looked to the autonomic nervous system – a key player in the stress response – to explore pupillary responses and heart rate variability in the condition. They found that it was possible to associate CSC with these biological metrics, and that larger pupil dilation during mental tasks could also be a marker of psychophysiological stress (3).

Scaling a pseudo font
 

Researchers have developed a new pseudo font for measuring visual acuity that has a consistent complexity and a refined degradation under blur (4). The font, PseudoSloan, is based on the optotype font Sloan, uses glyphs that are based on the Latin alphabet on a letter-by-letter basis, and allows for separation of orthography (recognition of a letter) from lexical knowledge (formation of a word).