Plasticity of the visual cortex and treatment of amblyopia

Over the last 50 years, research into the developmental plasticity of the visual cortex has led to a growing understanding of first the causes and then of the underlying cellular mechanisms of amblyopia or 'lazy eye', the commonest childhood disorder of vision. While it is widely believed that amblyopia cannot be treated successfully after the age of about 7, recent animal studies have demonstrated that visual cortex plasticity can be restored or enhanced later in life, paving the way for new strategies for the treatment of amblyopia that attempt to remove molecular brakes on plasticity. In addition, both animal and human work has established that amblyopia is not simply a monocular deficit, and therefore the most promising new non-invasive approaches force the two eyes to cooperate as opposed to conventional procedures that severely penalise the good eye.