One eye works better than the other Playing virtual reality computer games may help treat the condition known as amblyopia, or lazy eye, say researchers.
In patients with amblyopia, one eye works better than the other. Because the amblyopic eye is inferior for some reason, the brain decides to use the good eye.
Over time, the neural connection to the bad eye becomes gradually weaker in favour of the good eye, CNN reported. The traditional way of fixing the problem is for patients to force the bad eye to work harder by wearing a patch over the good eye.
Researchers at Nottingham University said that an experimental treatment using virtual reality (VR) may offer the best of both worlds, encouraging the lazy eye to be more active and getting both eyes to work together.
"But we're using VR to make something unrealistic. You could call it virtual unreality," he told Digital Planet.
"We're actually presenting two different versions of the world to each eye." The researchers are encouraged by the results.