ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Visual Neuroscience
This article is part of the Research TopicDevelopment and neuroplasticity of the visual system, amblyopia and beyondView all 3 articles
The influence of prior brief occlusion therapy on the outcome of later amblyopia treatment in cats
Provisionally accepted
- Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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Certain multi-centered randomized clinical trials of conventional treatment of children with amblyopia revealed greater improvement of the visual acuity of the amblyopic eye in patients that were never treated compared to those with a prior history of unsuccessful therapy. As a step toward a possible explanation for this phenomenon, this study investigated the influence of early prior brief treatment of amblyopia on the success of later treatment. These experiments were conducted using the well documented feline model of deprivation amblyopia. Six amblyopic kittens that received a very brief period of occlusion of the non-amblyopic eye prior to a much longer subsequent period of such occlusion exhibited less recovery of the visual acuity of the amblyopic eye (group mean 1.44 c/deg) compared to 7 control amblyopic animals that received only the second period of treatment (group mean 2.57 c/deg). The results from this animal model indicate that prior visual history may impact the capacity for neural plasticity and thus the potential for recovery from amblyopia. From a clinical standpoint the data suggest adoption of a 3-E protocol to optimize the efficiency of occlusion therapy for amblyopia in which occlusion is initiated Early, applied in an Exact manner, and be Enduring in length.
Keywords: Acuity, Amblyopia, animalmodel, monocular deprivation, Patching, Vision, Visual Cortex
Received: 20 Dec 2025; Accepted: 04 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Mitchell, Smith, Murphy, Dang, Crowder and Duffy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Donald Edward Mitchell
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