A team of Wayne State University researchers has restored visual response in blind mice through gene therapy. While more research needs to be done and researchers say they don\'t yet know if the apparent visual response is actually what could be described as good vision, the team led by Dr. Zhuo-Hua Pan, Wayne State\'s School of Medicine, says the findings are an exciting first step. The researchers say vision normally begins when photoreceptors in the back of the eye called rods and cones respond to light and send signals through other retinal neurons, called inner retinal neurons or interneurons. From there the signals go to the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain. In some genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, rods and cones degenerate and die, leading to blindness.