An 80-year-old woman regained her sight by chance during a clinical trial that had no such objective at all ! A "miracle" that even researchers have seen.
Scientists called it an "accidental miracle". This one happened quite by chance, when researchers at the University of Otago, New Zealand, were conducting a study aimed at relieving chronic pain. One of the participants in this research, who volunteered because she suffered from pelvic pain from an old fall, saw another of her problems miraculously resolved. The 80-year-old patient, who had also been blind for 12 years, has regained her sight ! And that's not the most incredible. Indeed, she was not even part of the group of participants who tested the treatment, but of the "control" group, always present during a clinical trial in order to verify its effectiveness. So this woman received... a placebo.
Electrical stimulation of the brain
"Miracle is not a word we use very often in science, but it is indeed an accidental miracle," study co-director Dr Divya Adhia told the Otago Daily Times newspaper. . The patient in question, a prominent author known as Lynley Hood, suffered from glaucoma, a chronic disease of the optic nerve, which caused her to lose her sight for more than ten years. But that is not why she participated in this study. She fractured her pelvis in a fall in 2020 and has suffered from severe lower back pain ever since. This is why the octogenarian agreed to participate in this trial in 2021, which aimed to examine the effects of brain stimulation on chronic pain.
Lynley Hood therefore lent herself to these brain stimulation sessions, five days a week, for a month. This involved putting on a cap with electrodes that send electrical currents to stimulate the brain. But as in all scientific studies, there was a main group, which received these electrical stimulations to specific areas of the brain, and a placebo group, which simply received current through the scalp. And Lynley Hood was in that placebo group.
"Hey guys, something's going on"
The unthinkable happened, however: "At first I thought I was imagining it. But their equipment showed that my retina cells were saying 'hey guys, something is happening'", recalls the writer for the local newspaper. “Flashes went through my scalp, into my eyes. It sent a lot of electrical messages to my optic nerve, and to the parts of my brain that create images, words and colors,” she describes. During this four-week period, his eyesight gradually improved, and by the end of the process, his vision was restored to almost 100% !
For the award-winning New Zealand author, who has been unable to read and write since suffering from the irreversible disease, it is now possible, an ophthalmologist has confirmed. According to the outlet, she now has the will to resume her work and even has several books in the works.
The researchers did not have this result in mind. They will therefore launch a parallel study to try to reproduce this result, with the aim of creating new treatments for people who have suffered vision loss.
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