Update on Visual Field Expansion with Rehabilitative Training (abstract)

Damage to the primary visual cortex (V1) or its immediate afferents results in a loss of conscious vision in corresponding parts of the visual field in each eye - in essence, causing a 'cortically-induced blindness' or CB. While blinding diseases are a significant scourge in our aging society, when it comes to cortical blindness, most of the sparse rehabilitation effort leans heavily towards substitution or compensation for the vision lost, rather than towards vision restoration. One contributing factor has been the mistaken belief that the adult visual system lacks the kind of plasticity inherent in other cortical [i.e., motor] systems, which underlies their ability to recover function after damage.