Create eye tadpoles on the back

Scientists have concluded that a large distance to the brain is not an obstacle to visual recovery of the tadpole's implanted eye. Their research is published in The Journal of Experimental Biology , and summarized on ScienceNow.

Tadpole with a partially functioning eye implanted in the tail.

The aim of the research is to explore the ability of the eye to connect axons (axons) to the central nervous system after transplantation. Although it is known in the amphibians, this ability is very limited, but it is unclear how far the axons can develop.

During the experiment, the frog's tadpoles Xenopus laevis transplanted different parts of the body, and after a while recovered the scientists determined their function. To test the visual function of tadpole eyes, they used light of different wavelengths.

The tadpole was placed in a glass plate, half illuminated with red light, the other half light blue. When the animal is half-red, it is driven away from the blue light by acting on it with a small electric current.

It is found that most newly hatched tadpoles are able to easily distinguish between red and blue light, when their eyes are implanted in the tail. So the axons of nerve cells in the eyes of these animals grow to the spinal cord, recovering part of the sensitivity to light.

According to scientists, people are naturally different from amphibians, unable to reproduce parts of the body. However, the mechanisms underlying the development of nerve axons in vertebrate animals are similar, allowing us to hope for the stimulation of these processes in the blind.