Blinding diseases that are caused by degeneration of rod and cone photoreceptor cells often spare the rest of the retinal circuit, from bipolar cells, which are directly innervated by photoreceptor cells, to the output ganglion cells that project axons to the brain. A strategy for restoring vision is to introduce light sensitivity to the surviving cells of the retina. One approach is optogenetics, in which surviving cells are virally transfected with a gene encoding a signaling protein that becomes sensitive to light by binding to the biologically available chromophore retinal, the same chromophore that is used by the opsin photo-detectors of rods and cones. A second approach uses photopharmacology, in which a synthetic photoswitch associates with a native or engineered ion channel or receptor. We review these approaches and look ahead to the next generation of advances that could reconstitute core aspects of natural vision.

由视杆细胞和视锥细胞退化引起的致盲疾病通常不会影响视网膜回路的其余部分，从直接受光感受器细胞支配的双极细胞到将轴突投射到大脑的输出神经节细胞。恢复视力的一种策略是将光敏感性引入视网膜的存活细胞。一种方法是光遗传学，其中存活的细胞用编码信号蛋白的基因进行病毒转染，该基因通过与生物可用的生色团视黄醛结合而变得对光敏感，视杆和视锥细胞的视蛋白光电探测器使用的生色团相同。第二种方法使用光药理学，其中合成光开关与天然或工程离子通道或受体相关联。