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Often, patients suffering from macular degeneration will use a different part of their retinas to make up for central vision loss. According to researchers from Georgia Tech’s School of Psychology, the brains macular degeneration patients can also compensate to vision changes by reorganizing their neural connections.

Using functional MRI technology, researchers found that even though study participants were relying on their peripheral vision rather than their central vision, the brain was actually processing information as if the patients had normal, unimpeded vision.

Study leader Eric Schumacher told Science Daily: “Our results show that the patient’s behavior may be critical to get the brain to reorganize in response to disease.  It’s not enough to lose input to a brain region for that region to reorganize; the change in the patient’s behavior also matters.”  This “behavior change” is the macular degeneration patient’s ability to compensate for central vision loss by relying on other areas of the visual field.

Source: EyeWorld News Magazine

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A new study shows that when people with retinal disease such as macular degeneration use a peripheral part of their retina to compensate for their loss of central vision, their brain appears to compensate by reorganizing its neural connections.

Macular degeneration (MD) causes a progressive loss of central visual.  To cope with this, MD patients often start to focus using a functional retinal area in the periphery of their area of vision. This use of a new area of focus may foster cortical reorganization.

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in participants as they performed a series of tests designed to visually stimulate their peripheral regions.  It was determined that when the participants visually stimulated the peripheral retinal locations they increased brain activity in the same areas of the visual cortex that are normally activated when healthy patients focused on objects in their central visual field.

Study authors believe that large-scale cortical reorganization of visual processing occurs in humans in response to retinal disease.  While several other studies have suggested that the brain can reorganize itself, this is the first study to show that this reorganization in patients with retinal disease is related to patient behavior.

Researchers are currently analyzing how long this reorganization takes and whether it can be assisted with low-vision training.

Learn more about macular degeneration

Read about eye exercises for vision fitness

SOURCE: Reorganization of visual processing is related to eccentric viewing in patients with macular degeneration, Schumacher, et al, Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, Volume 26, Number 4-5, 2008, 391 – 402.