A New Counterintuitive Training for Adult Amblyopia

Overview

Journal Ann Clin Transl Neurol

Specialty Neurology

Date 2019 Mar 9

PMID 30847360

Citations 46

Authors

Claudia Lunghi

Angela T Sframeli

Antonio Lepri

Martina Lepri

Domenico Lisi

Alessandro Sale

Maria C Morrone

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether short-term inverse occlusion, combined with moderate physical exercise, could promote the recovery of visual acuity and stereopsis in a group of adult anisometropic amblyopes.

Methods: Ten adult anisometropic patients underwent six brief (2 h) training sessions over a period of 4 weeks. Each training session consisted in the occlusion of the amblyopic eye combined with physical exercise (intermittent cycling on a stationary bike). Visual acuity (measured with ETDRS charts), stereoacuity (measured with the TNO test), and sensory eye dominance (measured with binocular rivalry) were tested before and after each training session, as well as in follow-up visits performed 1 month, 3 months, and 1 year after the end of the training.

Results: After six brief (2 h) training sessions, visual acuity improved in all 10 patients (0.15 ± 0.02 LogMar), and six of them also recovered stereopsis. The improvement was preserved for up to 1 year after training. A pilot experiment suggested that physical activity might play an important role for the recovery of visual acuity and stereopsis.

Conclusions: Our results suggest a noninvasive training strategy for adult human amblyopia based on an inverse-occlusion procedure combined with physical exercise.

Citing Articles

Contextual Binocular Imbalance Impairs Local Stereopsis.

Jiang R, Chang S, Yu X, Meng M Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2025; 66(3):6.

PMID: 40035726 PMC: 11892528. DOI: 10.1167/iovs.66.3.6.

Acceleration of spontaneous visual recovery by voluntary physical exercise in adolescent amblyopic rats.

Di Marco I, Sansevero G, Berardi N, Sale A Front Cell Neurosci. 2025; 18:1519197.

PMID: 39758272 PMC: 11695423. DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2024.1519197.

Attention enhances short-term monocular deprivation effect.

Wang J, He X, Bao M Psych J. 2024; 14(1):84-93.

PMID: 39396922 PMC: 11787881. DOI: 10.1002/pchj.806.

Evaluation of the clinical effect of 4D digital strabismus and amblyopia visual function correction system combined with traditional comprehensive treatment methods on anisometropic amblyopia.

Li H, Peng T, Qin Y BMC Ophthalmol. 2024; 24(1):433.

PMID: 39367380 PMC: 11451224. DOI: 10.1186/s12886-024-03703-3.

Pretraining alpha rhythm enhancement by neurofeedback facilitates short-term perceptual learning and improves visual acuity by facilitated consolidation.

Chang M, Suzuki S, Kurose T, Ibaraki T Front Neuroergon. 2024; 5:1399578.

PMID: 38894852 PMC: 11184131. DOI: 10.3389/fnrgo.2024.1399578.

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