Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye

Uri Polat; Clifton Schor; Jian Liang Tong; Ativ Zomet; Maria Lev; Oren Yehezkel; Anna Sterkin; Dennis M. Levi

doi:10.1038/srep00278

Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye

Uri Polat
, Clifton Schor
, Jian Liang Tong
, Ativ Zomet
, Maria Lev
, Oren Yehezkel
, Anna Sterkin
, Dennis M. Levi

Tel Aviv University
University of California at Berkeley

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

96 Scopus citations

Abstract

Presbyopia, from the Greek for aging eye, is, like death and taxes, inevitable. Presbyopia causes near vision to degrade with age, affecting virtually everyone over the age of 50. Presbyopia has multiple negative effects on the quality of vision and the quality of life, due to limitations on daily activities-in particular, reading. In addition presbyopia results in reduced near visual acuity, reduced contrast sensitivity, and slower processing speed. Currently available solutions, such as optical corrections, are not ideal for all daily activities. Here we show that perceptual learning (repeated practice on a demanding visual task) results in improved visual performance in presbyopes, enabling them to overcome and/or delay some of the disabilities imposed by the aging eye. This improvement was achieved without changing the optical characteristics of the eye. The results suggest that the aging brain retains enough plasticity to overcome the natural biological deterioration with age.

Original language	English
Article number	278
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00278
State	Published - 2012
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by Ucansi Inc. (UP), and grants from the National Eye Institute, NIH, RO1EY01728 (DL) and RO1EY017678. (CS). We thank Roger Li for his thoughtful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Funding Information:
Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/ scientificreports Competing financial interests: UP was funded in part by Ucansi Inc. He received compensation as a part-time employee and owns stock in the company. The other authors declare no competing financial interest. License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ How to cite this article: Polat, U. et al. Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye. Sci. Rep. 2, 278; DOI:10.1038/srep00278 (2012).

Funding

This research was supported by Ucansi Inc. (UP), and grants from the National Eye Institute, NIH, RO1EY01728 (DL) and RO1EY017678. (CS). We thank Roger Li for his thoughtful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/ scientificreports Competing financial interests: UP was funded in part by Ucansi Inc. He received compensation as a part-time employee and owns stock in the company. The other authors declare no competing financial interest. License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ How to cite this article: Polat, U. et al. Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye. Sci. Rep. 2, 278; DOI:10.1038/srep00278 (2012).

Funders	Funder number
Ucansi Inc.
National Institutes of Health	RO1EY017678
National Eye Institute	R01EY001728

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10.1038/srep00278

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title = "Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye",

abstract = "Presbyopia, from the Greek for aging eye, is, like death and taxes, inevitable. Presbyopia causes near vision to degrade with age, affecting virtually everyone over the age of 50. Presbyopia has multiple negative effects on the quality of vision and the quality of life, due to limitations on daily activities-in particular, reading. In addition presbyopia results in reduced near visual acuity, reduced contrast sensitivity, and slower processing speed. Currently available solutions, such as optical corrections, are not ideal for all daily activities. Here we show that perceptual learning (repeated practice on a demanding visual task) results in improved visual performance in presbyopes, enabling them to overcome and/or delay some of the disabilities imposed by the aging eye. This improvement was achieved without changing the optical characteristics of the eye. The results suggest that the aging brain retains enough plasticity to overcome the natural biological deterioration with age.",

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Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye

Abstract

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