Saturday 2 March 2013

Whoa! Mutant Tadpoles Sprout Eyeballs on Their Tails


Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 27 February 2013 

Eyes hooked up to the tail can help blinded tadpoles see, researchers say.

These findings could help guide therapies involving natural or artificial implants, scientists added.
CREDIT: Douglas Blackiston 

A major roadblock when it comes to treating blindness and other sensory disorders is how much remains unknown about the nervous system and its ability to adapt to change. To learn more about the relationship between the body and the brain, researchers wanted to see how capable the brain was of interpreting sensory data from abnormal "ectopic" locations from which it normally does not receive  signals.

Researchers grafted the tails of blind tadpoles of the African frog with eye tissue, which gave the tadpoles sight.


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