Presbyopia, the inevitable aging of the eye, will affect virtually every human being over the age of 50. This condition causes near vision to degrade and has multiple negative effects on the quality of vision and has particularly negative effects on reading. This includes not being able to read without glasses and slower speed of reading. With a rapidly aging population in the United States more and more people will be affected by presbyopia. It is estimated between 2000 and 2050 the number of older adults over the age of 65 will increase by 135% whereas the population under age 65 will increase by only 32%. In addition to the reading problem all these older adults will face, these vision and visual processing declines are also a major factor in the incidence of falls. So, knowing that there is an increasing population of elderly people who may face challenges reading and worse potentially hurting themselves in falls how can we go about supporting this inevitable fact? A potential solution is to train the brain to see images more clearly and process images faster.
In a 2012 study published in Science Report by Polat, U. et al. Training the brain to overcome the effect of aging on the human eye, the authors trained 30 subjects over three months in an average of 37 sessions each. The training involved three grating patches, one small low contrast, and two similar high contrast patches that came into vision from the sides in a line. This configuration of grating patches is known to result in facilitation of target detection. They also deployed a technique called backward masking which in essence flashed an image on top of another so that you fail to consciously perceive the first image. Training was done to try to induce faster processing to overcome the masking effect. They also tested the subjects pre and post training on several behavioral tests including visual acuity, reading speed, contrast detection and contrast discrimination as well as other tests of accommodation such as pupil size and depth of focus.
What they found at the end of the study was astounding, yet not without a need for further research specifically large randomized clinical trials. Prior to training reading the newspaper glasses-free was not achievable by all subjects. After the study however, all the subjects could read the newspaper with both eyes and without the need for glasses. An additional improvement was in the reading speeds of the subjects. On average their reading speeds improved by 17 words/minute. That means for an article with 2000 words they would save 9 minutes. There was a control group to ensure improvements were due to training rather than variability in pre and post-test measurements.
You may be thinking glasses aren’t that hard to put on and 9 minutes isn’t enough time for me to be concerned with my reading ability. Sure, that may be true, but what this study really highlights is the remarkable capacity for your brain to increase the efficiency of neural processing. In this case it was to perform de-blurring of highly blurred images, retrieve information and deliver it downstream for further processing at sensory and cognitive levels. It surely makes me appreciate the complexity of the brain and ability for it to adapt to its many different challenges it faces. You are never too old to keep training you brain to think and act differently.
