Correction of amblyopia in cats and mice after the critical period.

ABSTRACT: Monocular deprivation early in development causes amblyopia, a severe visual impairment. Prognosis is poor if therapy is initiated after an early critical period. However, clinical observations have shown that recovery from amblyopia can occur later in life when the non-deprived (fellow) eye is removed. The traditional interpretation of this finding is that vision is improved simply by the elimination of interocular suppression in primary visual cortex, revealing responses to previously subthreshold input. However, an alternative explanation is that silencing activity in the fellow eye establishes conditions in visual cortex that enable the weak connections from the amblyopic eye to gain strength, in which case the recovery would persist even if vision is restored in the fellow eye. Consis

SUBMITTER: Fong MF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8456712 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature