Abstract
A few hours of monocular deprivation with a diffuser eye patch temporarily strengthens the contribution of the deprived eye to binocular vision. This shift in favor of the deprived eye is characterized as a form of adult visual plasticity. Studies in animal and human models suggest that neuromodulators can enhance adult brain plasticity in general. Specifically, acetylcholine has been shown to improve certain aspects of visual function and plasticity in adulthood. We investigated whether a single administration of donepezil (a cholinesterase inhibitor) could further augment the temporary shift in perceptual eye dominance that occurs after 2 h of monocular patching. Twelve healthy adults completed two experimental sessions while taking either donepezil (5 mg, oral) or a placebo (lactose) pill. We measured perceptual eye dominance using a binocular phase combination task before and after 2 h of monocular deprivation with a diffuser eye patch. Participants in both groups demonstrated a significant shift in favor of the patched eye after monocular deprivation, however our results indicate that donepezil significantly reduces the magnitude and duration of the shift. We also investigated the possibility that donepezil reduces the amount of time needed to observe a shift in perceptual eye dominance relative to placebo control. For this experiment, seven subjects completed two sessions where we reduced the duration of deprivation to 1 h. Donepezil reduces the magnitude and duration of the patching-induced shift in perceptual eye dominance in this experiment as well. To verify whether the effects we observed using the binocular phase combination task were also observable in a different measure of sensory eye dominance, six subjects completed an identical experiment using a binocular rivalry task. These results also indicate that cholinergic enhancement impedes the shift that results from short-term deprivation. In summary, our study demonstrates that enhanced cholinergic potentiation interferes with the consolidation of the perceptual eye dominance plasticity induced by several hours of monocular deprivation.
Highlights
Changes in ocular dominance are perhaps the most widely studied form of brain plasticity, illustrating the causal links between experience and neuronal organization (Hubel and Wiesel, 1970; Wiesel, 1982; Fagiolini and Hensch, 2000; Zucker and Regehr, 2002; Bavelier et al, 2010; Gilbert and Li, 2012)
We performed a two-factor repeated measures ANOVA on the post-baseline ocular dominance index (ODI) computed for measurements taken at 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 min after removing the patch
A post hoc paired t-test examining the main effect of session indicated that the mean post-baseline difference across all measured time points observed when subjects were treated with donepezil was significantly reduced relative to the placebo control condition [t(11) = −4.9, p < 0.001, M = −1.27, 95% CI: [−1.79, −0.75]]
Summary
Changes in ocular dominance are perhaps the most widely studied form of brain plasticity, illustrating the causal links between experience and neuronal organization (Hubel and Wiesel, 1970; Wiesel, 1982; Fagiolini and Hensch, 2000; Zucker and Regehr, 2002; Bavelier et al, 2010; Gilbert and Li, 2012). In addition to plasticity during the critical period, recent investigations have found residual plasticity in adults using short-term (a few hours) MD (Lunghi et al, 2011, 2015a,b; Hess et al, 2013; Zhou et al, 2013, 2015; Kim et al, 2017; O’Shea, 2017; for an overview of short-term MD’s effects see Baldwin and Hess, 2018) In this case, patching an eye for a period of 2 h results in a temporary shift in favor of the deprived eye that is measurable for a duration of at least 1.5 h (Lunghi et al, 2011). In an effort to avoid confusion with the classical OD plasticity examined by Hubel and Wiesel (1970), which enhances the non-deprived eye, we will refer to the effect examined in the present study as short-term perceptual eye dominance plasticity
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