Persistence of training-induced visual improvements after occipital stroke
Willis,Hanna E Fahrenthold,Berkeley Millington-Truby,Rebecca S Willis,Rebecca Starling,Lucy Cavanaugh,Matthew R Tamietto,Marco Huxlin,Krystel Bridge,Holly
Willis,Hanna E
Fahrenthold,Berkeley
Millington-Truby,Rebecca S
Willis,Rebecca
Starling,Lucy
Cavanaugh,Matthew R
Tamietto,Marco
Huxlin,Krystel
Bridge,Holly
Abstract
Damage to the primary visual cortex causes homonymous visual impairments that appear to benefit from visual discrimination training. However, whether improvements persist without continued training remains to be determined and was the focus of the present study. After a baseline assessment visit, 20 participants trained twice daily in their blind-field for a minimum of six months (median=155 sessions), using a motion discrimination and integration task. At the end of training, a return study visit was used to assess recovery. Three months later, 14 of the participants returned for a third study visit to assess persistence of recovery. At each study visit, motion discrimination and integration thresholds, Humphrey visual fields, and structural MRI scans were collected. Immediately after training, all but four participants showed improvements in the trained discrimination task, and shrinkage of the perimetrically-defined visual defect. While these gains were sustained in seven out of eleven participants who improved with training, four participants lost their improvement in motion discrimination thresholds at the follow-up visit. Persistence of recovery was not related to age, time since lesion, number of training sessions performed, proportion of V1 damaged, deficit size, or optic tract degeneration measured from structural MRI scans. The present findings underscore the potential of extended visual training to induce long-term improvements in stroke-induced vision loss. However, they also highlight the need for further investigations to better understand the mechanisms driving recovery, its persistence post-training, and especially heterogeneity among participants.
Description
Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Humans, Male, Female, Middle Aged, Stroke/complications, Aged, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Stroke Rehabilitation/methods, Adult, Recovery of Function/physiology, Motion Perception/physiology, Visual Fields/physiology, Occipital Lobe/pathology, Visual Cortex/physiopathology, SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Citation
Willis, H E, Fahrenthold, B, Millington-Truby, R S, Willis, R, Starling, L, Cavanaugh, M R, Tamietto, M, Huxlin, K & Bridge, H 2025, Persistence of training-induced visual improvements after occipital stroke. in D Ball & R M Joly-Mascheroni (eds), Blindness and visual impairments. vol. 292, Progress in brain research, vol. 292, Elsevier, pp. 113-142. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.pbr.2024.12.001