Electromechanical Cornea Reshaping for Refractive Vision Therapy.

The corneal stroma consists of orthogonally stacked collagen-fibril lamellae that determine the shape of the cornea and provide most of the refractive power of the eye. We have applied electromechanical reshaping (EMR), an electrochemical platform for remodeling cartilage and other semirigid tissues, to change the curvature of the cornea as a potential procedure for nonsurgical vision correction. EMR relies on short electrochemical pulses to electrolyze water, with subsequent diffusion of protons into the extracellular matrix of collagenous tissues; protonation of immobilized anions within this matrix disrupts the ionic-bonding network, leaving the tissue transiently responsive to mechanical remodeling.