When Yale University researchers showed in 2019 that rudimentary electrical activity could be restored in pig brains after death, University of Utah vision scientist Frans Vinberg, Scripps Research retinal surgeon Anne Hanneken and their colleagues were inspired to study whether retinal tissue could also be restored postmortem.They were able to restore this activity up to three hours later—and found that a lack of oxygen was the main factor in irreversible loss of function.“What's most exciting is this really could become a model for studying visual physiology in human retinas, in health and in aging and in disease,” says Joan Miller, chief of ophthalmology at Mass Eye and Ear and ophthalmology chair at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved with the new study.“The retina is a window to the brain, so if you can restore communication in the retina after death, it makes you pause and consider what kind of communication you might be able to recover in the brain,” Hanneken says.“We hope this will encourage people ... to check that box in their driver's license and also be willing to donate tissues for research.”"