In children with amblyopia (also known as “lazy eye”), one eye is weaker than the other for various reasons, such as focusing problems, strabismus, or obstructions to vision caused by cataracts or a drooping eyelid.
As a result, the brain tends to favor information from the stronger eye, which can lead to vision loss in the weaker eye.
However, when amblyopia is caught early, placing a patch over the dominant eye can train the brain to pay more attention to the weaker eye, which helps improve its vision. Unfortunately, this strategy is more effective in children under the age of 5 or 6, because the “critical period” in which the brain can reconfigure visual circuits tends to end by this time, and recovery of vision becomes more difficult.
However, there is research to suggest that certain drugs may reopen this critical period of intervention. In a 2010 study, it was shown that drugs such as donepezil, used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, were able to correct amblyopia in mice long after the critical period had passed.
This discovery inspired a small open clinical trial at a children’s hospital in Boston, USA, which raised the hope that in older children and even adults with amblyopia, lost vision can be recovered, at least in part.
Although the observed improvements in vision recovery were modest and not seen in all participants, they were stable and could pave the way for larger, placebo-controlled trials exploring various drugs and simultaneous vision therapies.
“Our study confirmed that brain plasticity can be rekindled,” said neurologist Takao Hensch, one of the researchers involved in the study.
The results of this study were published in the journal Scientific Reports. Donepezil, the drug used in this study, increases the level of acetylcholine and is already prescribed to improve cognitive functions.
Boston researchers designed this clinical trial and worked with regulatory authorities to obtain approval for the use of donepezil in a new indication. They recruited 16 participants between the ages of 9 and 37 who had previously been treated with patches for amblyopia but had not achieved improvement.
After treatment with donepezil, participants showed improvements in visual acuity, and these improvements persisted even after treatment ended. The research team is now exploring the possibility of larger studies to identify more effective treatments for amblyopia, including other drugs or combinations of therapies. The goal is to achieve more significant improvements in the recovery of vision in patients, thus opening new perspectives in the treatment of this condition.
Source: 360medical.ro
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2023-09-16 19:06:22
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