Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Oak Park families spend a lot of time outdoors, from the Medea Creek trail to weekend soccer at the neighborhood parks. Sun exposure is part of that lifestyle, and so, for some people, is a finding that surprises them at a routine eye exam: a nevus, or “eye freckle.” What a nevus is The American…

Winter break is coming, and for many Oak Park families that means more tablets, more video games and more movie marathons. A bit of extra screen time over the holidays is normal. But it is also a good moment to think about how children’s eyes grow, and why getting outside matters. When nearsightedness starts The…

Diabetic macular edema (DME) is swelling in the center of the retina caused by leaky blood vessels in diabetes. Anti-VEGF injections are the usual first treatment, but many people respond only partly. For them, steroid implants placed inside the eye are an option, though current dissolving implants last about three months. In 2026, Eclipse Life…

Geographic atrophy (GA) is the advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration. Patches of retinal tissue at the center of vision slowly die and expand. Treatments that slow GA exist, but they require frequent injections and do not restore vision, so researchers are testing other approaches. A different target: the inflammasome At the American Academy…

In the intermediate stage of dry age-related macular degeneration, patients often have drusen, small yellow deposits under the retina, and may notice some blur, but treatment options are limited. Doctors mainly recommend monitoring, healthy habits, and, for some people, AREDS2-type vitamins. At the Retina Society 2026 meeting in Los Angeles, Michael David Ober, MD, presented…

Inflammation is thought to play a role in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and patients sometimes ask whether a routine blood test could warn them that their AMD is getting worse. One common test is high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, or hs-CRP, a general marker of inflammation in the body. A study published in November 2026 in the…

Glaucoma is usually discussed in numbers: eye pressure, nerve-fiber thickness, visual-field scores. Living with a lifelong, sight-threatening condition also affects mood. A systematic review in the journal Depression and Anxiety pulled together the research on depression among people with glaucoma. What the researchers did The team searched ten databases through March 27, 2026, and included…

Most glaucoma visits capture one pressure number while you sit upright in a bright exam room. A University of South Florida series published in Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, led by Christopher Passaglia with Alexandra Zamitalo as lead author, used a wireless continuous monitoring system in rats to show how strongly eye pressure follows the…

Glaucoma trials often summarize vision with one global visual-field number. A phase 2 analysis indexed as PMID 42517851 asked whether nicotinamide plus pyruvate produced local improvements that a single score can miss. Why topography matters Open-angle glaucoma damages the optic nerve in patterns that are not uniform. A patient can feel a change in one…

When a parent or grandparent in Oak Park has glaucoma, the whole family often becomes involved in their care, from rides to appointments to reminders about drops. One question I hear more often is whether eye pressure can be checked at home. A new study in the Journal of Glaucoma looked at how patients and…