Washington, November 24 (QNA)  Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US have discovered a method that could restore vision to people suffering from amblyopia, also known as lazy eye, by reactivating the retina to its original state, allowing it to grow and heal itself.
The study indicates that temporarily disabling the affected retina through anesthesia led to the recovery of the affected eye. After comparing the treated sample to a control group, the percentage of nerve signals coming from the treated eye increased to match the input from the healthy eye, indicating that the treatment effectively reactivated the affected eye.
The results, published in the journal Cell Reports, show that temporarily anesthetizing the retina can restore the visual system to its original state and treat amblyopia, a condition that occurs when vision in one or both eyes does not develop properly during childhood, as the brain learns to ignore one eye.
It is possible to disable the lazy eye, which performs few functions, and bring it back to life while preserving vision in the healthy eye, study author Mark Bears said.
Previous studies indicate that available treatments only work in early childhood, when neural connections are still forming, making this new discovery an important step towards treating adults suffering from this condition. (QNA)