Australian scientists hope discovery could lead to breakthrough on blindness

A team of Australian researchers believe they could be a step closer to preventing blindness, after discovering a second information transfer "pathway" from the eye to the brain.

The discovery, published in the Current Biology journal on Tuesday, highlighted the second pathway in an area of the brain called the pulvinar, which acts as the brain's sorting room for sensory information.

The research by Monash University scientists shows that if the first pathway is damaged in the 12 months after birth, the brain is able to redirect sensory messages away from that path and into the pulvinar, meaning that vision can be restored and the eyes can continue to function normally.

It was once thought that if the passage from the eye to the brain was damaged, sight was lost, but the discovery that the brain can modify its own structure could give hope to those diagnosed with blindness at a young age.

Associate Professor James Bourne from Monash University's Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute said on Tuesday that the information gathered from the research will help scientists further understand the workings of the human brain.

"It's a great leap forward in understanding how the brain is wired," he said.

Bourne said research on the pulvinars had been widely ignored in the past, as it was a complex area of the brain and that there were other pathways that were still yet to be discovered.

The research will offer greater understanding to scientists about information transfer between the eye and the brain, as well give further insight on how the brain repairs itself after sustaining damage.

"Understanding this route of information is really important, and this is really the first study looking at it," Bourne said.

"We knew the brain has the capacity to re-wire itself following injury or trauma but the idea that there is a second pathway providing visual information to the brain is a relatively new phenomenon," he added. Endi