Abstract
Amblyopia is a sensory developmental disorder affecting as many as 4% of children around the world. While clinically identified as a reduction in visual acuity and disrupted binocular function, amblyopia affects many low- and high-level perceptual abilities. Research with nonhuman primate models has provided much needed insight into the natural history of amblyopia, its origins and sensitive periods, and the brain mechanisms that underly this disorder. Amblyopia results from abnormal binocular visual experience and impacts the structure and function of the visual pathways beginning at the level of the primary visual cortex (V1). However, there are multiple instances of abnormalities in areas beyond V1 that are not simply inherited from earlier stages of processing. The full constellation of deficits must be taken into consideration in order to understand the broad impact of amblyopia on visual and visual–motor function. The data generated from studies of animal models of the most common forms of amblyopia have provided indispensable insight into the disorder, which has significantly impacted clinical practice. It is expected that this translational impact will continue as ongoing research into the neural correlates of amblyopia provides guidance for novel therapeutic approaches.
Highlights
Amblyopia is associated with blur in one eye, misaligned eyes, or other impediment to clear vision, such as cataract or corneal opacity, when these conditions exist during an early period of development—the visual sensitive period
As of the early 1970s, it was known that conditions like anisometropia and strabismus were associated with amblyopia, but there was no clear evidence of causality, only a less than perfect correlation
Since amblyopia is a disorder that arises in association with imbalanced binocular vision during postnatal visual development in humans, it is important to study an animal model that has a similar developmental profile, has similar adult level vision, and has visual system organization that is similar to humans
Summary
Estimates of the prevalence of amblyopia are on the order of 1% to 4% of children [5,6,7] It affects many aspects of vision, from basic acuity to high-level form vision, binocular function and stereopsis, reading, and visual–motor coordination, as well as nonvisual factors, such as children’s psychosocial adjustment. High-level perceptual losses include many aspects of vision that are important for everyday life, such as figure–ground segregation, integration of visual information over space and time, motion sensitivity, and object recognition [8, 9] Because amblyopia has such broad implications for children’s visual and social development, it is important to understand the natural history and neural basis for the disorder and to improve detection and treatment options
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