Visual Processing in Amblyopia: Human Studies

Abstract

Within the last five years, there have been a number of exciting new advances in our knowledge and understanding of amblyopia. This article reviews recent psychophysical studies of naturally occurring amblyopia in humans. These studies suggest that: 1) There are significant differences in the patterns of visual loss among the clinically defined categories of amblyopes. A key factor in determining the nature of the loss is the presence or absence of binocularity. 2) Dysfunction within the amblyopic visual system first occurs in area V1, and the effects of amblyopia may be amplified downstream. 3) There appears to be substantial neural plasticity in the amblyopic brain beyond the “critical period.”

KEYWORDS:

• Amblyopia pathogenesis
• visual processing
• visual cortex
• binocularity
• contrast sensitivity
• visual acuity
• perceptual deficit
• visual development
• perceptual learning