Approximately 39 million people worldwide suffer from irreversible blindness. Our recently established whole eye transplant model (WET) gives the opportunity to provide an intact optical system that could restore lost vision. In this study we use manganese-enhanced MRI to examine the anterograde transport of the transplanted and recipient visual pathways following WET. Our results show comparable manganese enhancement between donor and naïve intraorbital optic nerves, suggesting the presence of anterograde manganese transport in the donor optic nerve. This in vivo imaging model system may allow future examinations of neuroregenerative approaches for connecting between the transplanted eye and the recipient’s brain.
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