Final Report Summary - PRESBYOPIA (Bio-inspired optical corrections of presbyopia)
The eye is an extraordinary system projecting images of the outside world onto the retina, with further neural processing creating a visual impression in the brain. With aging, the crystalline lens of the eye loses its ability to dynamically focus images of the environment, creating the need of visual corrections for presbyopia. ERC Presbyopia has generated unique technology to investigate the crystalline lens and its changes with age and treatment and the neural mechanisms of visual adaptation. Deeper knowledge on the crystalline lens structure and function, and the optical and visual response to optical corrections, has inspired new corrections for presbyopia, in particular novel multifocal intraocular lens designs, and a revolutionary accommodating intraocular lens that mimics the crystalline-lens reshaping and captures the forces from the ciliary muscle by a novel photo-activated enabling technique called photobonding. Technology transfer of the new diagnostic tools (3-D quantitative optical coherence tomography, crystalline lens full shape reconstruction, ocular biomechanics reconstruction and visual simulation) and the new presbyopia correction alternatives have ensured that ERC Presbyopia has not only shed light into fundamental mechanisms of vision, but also contributed to the solution of a visual condition affecting a large percentage of the population.