
Live Wires
The pathoconnectome of retinitis pigmentosa shows how neurodegenerative diseases change retinal circuitry
Aleksandra Jones | | Quick Read
In 2011, the NIH-funded Marclab for Connectomics from the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, created a diagram of retina circuitry – the retinal connectome for vision, showing how physiology and behavior might reflect synaptic networks and their topologies. The lab then moved on to researching network changes in retinal degeneration, and has recently published a paper presenting the first ultrastructural pathoconnectome of early neurodegeneration (1).
Though the pathoconnectome has been developed based on a model of early-stage retinitis pigmentosa, the neural network changes have implications extending beyond the eye and could be helpful in researching epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s diseases, and even developing potential treatments. The data set used in the project is open for use by other researchers.

Enjoy our FREE content!
Log in or register to gain full unlimited access to all content on the The Ophthalmologist site. It’s FREE!
Login
Or register now - it’s free!
You will benefit from:
- Unlimited access to ALL articles
- News, interviews & opinions from leading industry experts
- Receive print (and PDF) copies of The Ophthalmologist magazine
- RL Pfeiffer et al., Exp Eye Res, [Epub ahead of print] (2020). PMID: 32810483.
About the Author
