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What is this research and what is its purpose?

A hallmark of Amblyopia is when one eye is very strong and another eye ‘lazy’, and only the strong eye is used for seeing. Lazy eye is another name for 'Amblyopia'. Amblyopia is the most common cause of vision loss in children and affects how the visual brain learns to see.  Hence it is the brain that we want to study to better understand Amblyopia.

Amblyopia is commonly treated using Occlusion Therapy. Occlusion Therapy involves making the lazy eye work harder by putting a patch on the stronger eye. After Occlusion Therapy, many children have better vision on their 'lazy' eye, but some do not.

It is not well understood how Occlusion Therapy changes the brain, and why it works in some and not others. By studying how Occlusion Therapy changes the brain, we hope to better understand how the brain learns to see better. This knowledge can be used to find more effective treatments for Amblyopia in the future.

Where we are at the moment

We are currently in the planning stage of this research. We are looking for patient and public involvement (PPI) contributors: anyone who would be willing to give us feedback who has a child with Amblyopia AND/OR has a child who has had an MRI scan.

PPI contributors will meet with researchers, review a few short documents and discuss ideas.They will be reimbursed for their time and reasonable expenses to help them participate.

Contact

If you are interested in becoming a PPI contributor, then please get in touch with us! Email Rebecca: rebecca.willis@ndcn.ox.ac.uk