Artificial organ a stationary power supply or other stationary resources such as filters or chemical processing units. (Periodic rapid recharging of batteries, refilling of chemicals, and/or cleaning/replacing of filters would exclude a device from being called an artificial organ.) Thus, a dialysis machine, while a very successful and critically important life support device that almost completely replaces the duties of a kidney, is not an artificial organ. Constructing and installing artificial organs, an extremely research-intensive and expensive process initially, may entail many years of ongoing maintenance services not needed by a natural organ.: The use of any artificial organ by humans is
Retinal degeneration (rhodopsin mutation) rhodopsin. One mechanism of retinal degeneration is rhodopsin overexpression. Another mechanism, whereby a mutation caused a truncated rhodopsin, was found to affect rod function and increased the rate of photoreceptor degeneration. Photoreceptor cell death is the eventual outcome of retinal degeneration. Without proper function of the photoreceptor cells, vision is not possible. Irreversible loss of these cells has been attributed as a cause of blindness in many retinal degenerative disorders, including RP. The exact mechanism of photoreceptor cell death is not clearly understood. Among potential causes is the endocytosis of stable complexes formed between rhodopsin and its regulatory protein arrestin