Effect of visual perception training on binocular visual function reconstruction in patients after strabismus surgery

AIM:To explore the effect of visual perception learning software training(VPT)on binocular visual function reconstruction in children with intermittent exotropia after strabismus surgery.METHODS:Ninety children with intermittent exotropia admitted to our hospital from June 2018 to December 2018 were included,and randomly divided into VPT and control groups.Children in the control group received basic binocular vision training,while those in the VPT group received VPT after strabismus surgery.Tertiary visual function,visual perception function,Newcastle Control Score(NCS),and ocular position retraction rate were compared at 3 and 12mo after the surgery.RESULTS:At 3 and 12mo after the surgery,the proportion of simultaneous perception,binocular fusion version and binocular stereo vision in the VPT group was conspicuously higher than that in the control group(P<0.05).After the vision training,the binocular visual perception functions of children in both groups were significantly improved compared with that before training(P<0.05).Interestingly,the grating sharpness,texture perception and texture motion perception in the VPT group were dramatically better than control group(P<0.01).The NCS in the VPT group was significantly lower than that in the control group(P<0.05).The ocular position retraction rate in the VPT group was significantly lower than that in the control group at 12mo(8.89%vs 26.67%,P=0.03).CONCLUSION:VPT effectively promotes binocular visual function reconstruction in intermittent exotropia children after strabismus surgery and reduces the strabismus severity and ocular position retraction rate.

Effect of visual training on cognitive function in stroke patients

Objective:To observe the effect of visual training on cognitive function in stoke patients.Methods:Eighty stroke patients with cognitive dysfunction were divided into two groups(n?40 in each group).The control group received conventional rehabilitation therapies.The experimental group received visual training in addition to the conventional therapies.This training was administered for 30 min once a day,five times a week,for four weeks.All patients were screened with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment(MoCA)both before and after the four weeks of intervention.Results:After the four-week intervention,patients in the experimental group increased their scores for attention and concentration,executive function,memory,visual skills,abstract thinking,calculation,and directional force,as well as their total standard score(p<0.01).The patients in the control group also increased their scores in the executive function,visual skills and abstract thinking,as well as their total standard score(p<0.05).However,the experimental group scored higher than the control group for both the individual and total standard scores(p<0.05).Conclusion:Visual training could improve cognitive function of patients with stroke.

Does Visual Training Provide Competitive Advantage in the Perceived Stressful Situations of a Tennis Match？

Vision training is often proposed through the unchallenged assumption that the training of sight skills is paramount to vision and can improve competitive performance. A growing body of neuroscientific literature demonstrates that most vision processes happen as a result of inside-out rather than outside-in neural pathways. Training systems and methods are often being counselled, promoted, and accepted as solve-it-all approaches without statistic and scientific evidence that training improvement can be transferred from training sessions to competitive performance.

Add-on perceptual learning on refractive amblyopia in children

AIM:To evaluate the visual outcomes of standard amblyopic treatment add-on training via perceptual learning in refractive amblyopic children and to identify the risk factors for treatment failure.METHODS:Retrospective charts were reviewed in children with refractive amblyopia who received standard treatment and add-on Cambridge Visual Stimulator(CAM)training.The add-on CAM group that was enrolled had worn full-corrected glasses for at least 2mo before training.A control group received only the standard treatment.Treatment success was defined as best-corrected visual acuity(BCVA)≥20/25.The age,sex,initial BCVA,refractive errors,sessions and duration of training,and final BCVA were recorded.RESULTS:A total of 209 children(129 children in add-on CAM group and 80 children in control group)were enrolled.Seventy-six percent of unilateral and 87%of bilateral amblyopic children achieved treatment success.In children with unilateral or bilateral moderate amblyopia,the duration to reach BCVA≥20/25 was significantly shorter in add-on CAM group than in control group.Poor initial BCVA(P<0.001)and high astigmatism(P=0.007)were risk factors for treatment failure after add-on CAM training.Age,sex,and types of refractive error were not associated with treatment success.CONCLUSION:Add-on CAM training is an effective strategy for visual improvement and can shorten the treatment course when the effect of standard treatment is limited in amblyopic children.

Altered electroencephalographic networks in developmental dyslexia after remedial training:a prospective case-control study

Electroencephalographic studies using graph theoretic analysis have found aberrations in functional connectivity in children with developmental dyslexia.However,how the training with visual tasks can change the functional connectivity of the semantic network in developmental dyslexia is still unclear.We looked for differences in local and global topological properties of functional networks between 21 healthy controls and 22 dyslexic children(8–9 years old)before and after training with visual tasks in this prospective case-control study.The minimum spanning tree method was used to construct the subjects’brain networks in multiple electroencephalographic frequency ranges during a visual word/pseudoword discrimination task.We found group differences in the theta,alpha,beta and gamma bands for four graph measures suggesting a more integrated network topology in dyslexics before the training compared to controls.After training,the network topology of dyslexic children had become more segregated and similar to that of the controls.In theθ,αandβ1-frequency bands,compared to the controls,the pre-training dyslexics exhibited a reduced degree and betweenness centrality of the left anterior temporal and parietal regions.The simultaneous appearance in the left hemisphere of hubs in temporal and parietal(α,β1),temporal and superior frontal cortex(θ,α),parietal and occipitotemporal cortices(β1),identified in the networks of normally developing children was not present in the brain networks of dyslexics.After training,the hub distribution for dyslexics in the theta and beta1 bands had become similar to that of the controls.In summary,our findings point to a less efficient network configuration in dyslexics compared to a more optimal global organization in the controls.This is the first study to investigate the topological organization of functional brain networks of Bulgarian dyslexic children.Approval for the study was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Neurobiology and the Institute for Population and Human Studies,Bulgarian Academy of Sciences(approval No.02-41/12.07.2019)on March 28,2017,and the State Logopedic Center and the Ministry of Education and Science(approval No.09-69/14.03.2017)on July 12,2019.