Abstract | Purpose: Methods: To investigate short-term visual cortical plasticity in retinitis pigmentosa, we tested the effect of short-term (2 hours) monocular deprivation on sensory ocular dominance (measured with binocular rivalry) in a group of 14 patients diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa with a central visual field sparing greater than 20° in diameter. Results: After deprivation most patients showed a perceptual shift in ocular dominance in favor of the deprived eye (P < 0.001), as did control subjects, indicating a level of visual cortical plasticity in the normal range. The deprivation effect correlated negatively with visual acuity (r = -0.63, P = 0.015), and with the amplitude of the central 18° focal electroretinogram (r = -0.68, P = 0.015) of the deprived eye, revealing that in retinitis pigmentosa stronger visual impairment is associated with higher plasticity. Conclusions: Our results provide a new tool to assess the ability of retinitis pigmentosa patients to adapt to altered visual inputs, and suggest that in retinitis pigmentosa the adult brain has sufficient short-term plasticity to benefit from prospective therapies.
|
Authors | Claudia Lunghi, Lucia Galli-Resta, Paola Binda, Guido Marco Cicchini, Giorgio Placidi, Benedetto Falsini, Maria Concetta Morrone |
Journal | Investigative ophthalmology & visual science
(Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci)
Vol. 60
Issue 7
Pg. 2753-2763
(06 03 2019)
ISSN: 1552-5783 [Electronic] United States |
PMID | 31247082
(Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
|
Topics |
- Adult
- Dominance, Ocular
(physiology)
- Electroretinography
- Female
- Humans
- Male
- Middle Aged
- Neuronal Plasticity
(physiology)
- Prospective Studies
- Retinitis Pigmentosa
(physiopathology)
- Vision Disparity
(physiology)
- Vision, Binocular
(physiology)
- Visual Acuity
(physiology)
- Visual Cortex
(physiology)
- Visual Fields
(physiology)
|