Abstract
Purpose :
The objective of this study is to investigate the temporal and storage properties of visual plasticity induced by monocular deprivation in adults with normal vision. Monocular Deprivation strengthens the deprived eye’s contribution to binocular vision in adults with normal vision for a short duration in adults (Lunghi et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.06.004). This effect has been shown with various visual tasks such as binocular competition (binocular rivalry tasks) and combination (Zhou et al., doi: doi: 10.1167/13.5.12). It has been shown that the effect of monocular deprivation lasts for only about 30 minutes in adults with normal vision (Zhou et al., doi: 10.1155/2017/4780876). We examine whether the ocular dominance changes induced by monocular deprivation can be more long-lasting after multiple rounds of monocular deprivation for five consecutive days.
Methods :
Using a binocular phase combination task, we investigate whether this plasticity effect can accumulate across multiple periods of monocular deprivation. Five adults with normal vision were tested on five consecutive days at a similar time each day. They performed the baseline measurement, were patched for 120 minutes using a translucent patch, and then completed the post-patching measurement tests at 0, 3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 minutes after patching.
Results :
We conducted a 2-way (Before vs after patching x Day) mixed ANOVA and yielded no significant effect, F(1, 4) = 4.242, p = 0.126. Moreover, we compared the baseline of eye balance across days and found no significant effect between the baselines across days using 1-way mixed ANOVA, F(1, 19) = 1.32, p = 0.26. We also performed the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test to compare the changes in ocular dominance between before and after patching and found no significant difference across days.
Conclusions :
Our results show that, at least in normal adults, the neuroplastic changes caused by monocular deprivation are short-lived.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.