A decrease in the amount of dopamine in the retina could explain why people with diabetes often have visual problems or even go blind.
Reduced levels of this brain-signalling molecule have been seen in diabetes before, so Machelle Pardue at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and her colleagues gave a dopamine precursor called L-DOPA to rat and mouse models of type 1 diabetes. They found that the molecule delayed the onset and slowed down the progression of early visual dysfunction, and improved the responses of the retina's light-sensing cells.
Treating dopamine deficiency could be a way to combat vision loss associated with type 1 diabetes, the authors say.
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Dopamine loss hurts diabetic eye. Nature 505, 456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505456b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/505456b