National Eye Institute

NEI News

Brain Training May Bolster Visual Attention

If a study participant were instructed to pay attention to “scenes” and he was attending well, he would be shown the top image as a reward. As his attention lapsed, the middle and bottom images would be shown. The face in the photograph is that of the study’s first author, Megan deBettencourt, a doctoral candidate at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.

People are bad at staying focused. We’ve all had our minds wander when we try to concentrate on a task that requires paying close attention but isn’t all that engaging. But a new NIH-funded study suggests that one’s capacity to stay focused can improve with real-time feedback.

Posted on Feb 18, 2015

Eylea outperforms other drugs for diabetic macular edema with moderate or worse vision loss

Illustration showing the retina as seen through a dilated pupil.

In an NIH-supported clinical trial comparing three drugs for diabetic macular edema (DME), Eylea (aflibercept) provided greater visual improvement, on average, than did Avastin (bevacizumab) or Lucentis (ranibizumab) when vision was 20/50 or worse at the start of the trial.

Posted on Feb 18, 2015

NEI Audacious Goals Initiative (AGI)

The NEI selected this Audacious Goal to energize the vision research community with the knowledge that NEI is committed to making this a reality.
NEI Summer Intern Program (SIP)

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Diversity In Vision Research & Ophthalmology (DIVRO)

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February is Low Vision Month

Low vision means that even with regular glasses, contact lenses, medicine, or surgery, people find everyday tasks difficult to do.
NIH Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative

Enabling biomedical scientists to capitalize more fully on large, complex, and diverse datasets.