Study participants in the Levi lab at the University of California, Berkeley, are using virtual reality to treat amblyopia.
Elena Zhukova/UC Regent
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Elena Zhukova/UC Regent
Study participants in the Levi lab at the University of California, Berkeley, are using virtual reality to treat amblyopia.
Elena Zhukova/UC Regent
Amblyopia, or low vision, is the most common cause of vision loss in children. And this condition, which impairs depth perception, can persist into adulthood.
However, the treatment of amblyopia has not changed much until recently.
The standard approach is to put an eyepatch on the strong eye and force the brain to rely on the weaker or lazy eye.it works Most of the time, but not perfectly.
Several research teams are currently working on new initiatives aimed at helping the brain better utilize information coming in from both eyes. Several companies are emerging that are working on treatments based on this new angle.
Weak eyes are lost due to competition in the brain
Visual impairment in people with amblyopia is not always obvious. They can have a hard time pinpointing what’s out there in space. Problems with depth perception may cause you to squint frequently. why? That’s because there is an invisible competition for visual signals in their brains.
“In all cases of amblyopia, there’s a strong eye and a weak eye, and it’s kind of a winner-take-all situation in the cortex,” he says. elizabeth quinlan Neuroscientist at the University of Maryland. She studies people with amblyopia, and she says their eyes often function normally. Their vision problems are caused by the signals their eyes send to their brains. She says, “The cortex learns to ignore the weak signals from the eye.”
By ignoring the weaker eye, the brain does not fuse images from both eyes. As a result, people with low vision may have difficulty seeing her in 3D.
To remedy this, doctors start treating amblyopic patients at a younger age, when their brain pathways are still developing. Children, usually under the age of 7, are often told to wear eye patches over their strong eyes.
But once the kids take off their eye patches, the competition could start all over again.For lasting improvements, neuroscientists say new treatments need to teach the brain to stop suppressing important visual cues coming from the weaker eye. Dennis Levi from the University of California, Berkeley.
“You have to get used to paying attention to that information and using it,” Levi said.
Researchers like Levi are working on ways to encourage the eyes to work together.
Virtual reality trains the brain while kids watch anime
Companies are also emerging to design new treatments.one person is called Luminopia.
“We were very surprised to learn that eye patch treatment is the standard of care for such a prevalent condition in this day and age,” says Luminopia’s CEO. Scott Hsiao. “It felt like a very old-fashioned and outdated method,” Hsiao said, noting that it can be difficult for parents to convince their children to wear eye patches. “We set out to develop something better.”
Luminopia therapy involves having children watch videos such as: sesame street, spongebob and arthur Through a virtual reality headset. The headset blocks certain parts of the display with each eye while children are viewing.
“So the patient actually has to combine the input from the two images to get the complete video,” Xiao says.
The company is trial Children with amblyopia have been shown to see better on eye chart assessments after three months of one-hour sessions six days a week. However, improvements in depth perception and long-term effects have not yet been measured.food and drug administration Clear Luminopia marketing treatment in 2021. Luminopia says it’s available with a prescription and costs about $50 a month out-of-pocket if covered by insurance.
Can you teach your old brain new tricks?
Luminopia treatment is intended for children, not adults. Scientific dogma says that unless a person learns how to fuse signals from both eyes from an early age, they will never become amblyoped. Some scientists believe it is futile to try to treat adults whose brains have suppressed signals from weakened eyes for decades.
“There are a lot of people, myself included, who fundamentally believe this can be changed,” he says. Eric Guyer I am a researcher and ophthalmologist at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Geier owns a stake in Luminopia and has been working with the company to test the system. He says this is just one approach he uses to treat patients with amblyopia. There are various other studies being conducted that may help adults.
recently pilot studyhe gave the drug to adults with amblyopia donepezil, used to treat dementia symptoms such as memory loss. Scientists hoped the drug would activate patients’ visual systems, making it easier for the brain to receive signals from the weakened eyes. And sure enough, some people’s symptoms started to improve after taking the drug.
“It was very encouraging to see this,” Geier said. More trials are needed to test the drug’s safety and effectiveness in amblyopia, but Geyer is optimistic that it could one day improve vision in adults as well. “There has to be some answer. And there may be new interventions that I and others haven’t thought of yet.”
anna marie yanny I’m a science journalist in California who covers stories about health and the environment.
