Between 1-5:100 people worldwide have never experienced normotypic vision due to a condition called amblyopia, and about 1:4000 suffer from inherited retinal dystrophies that progressively lead to blindness. While a wide range of technologies and therapies are being developed to restore vision, a fundamental question still remains unanswered: would the adult visual brain retain a sufficient plastic potential to learn how to 'see' after a prolonged period of abnormal visual experience? In this review we summarize studies showing that the visual brain of sighted adults retains a type of developmental plasticity, called homeostatic plasticity, and this property has been recently exploited successfully for adult amblyopia recovery. Next, we discuss how the brain circuits reorganize when blindness occurs and when visual stimulation is partially restored by means of a 'bionic eye' in late blind adults with Retinitis Pigmentosa. The primary visual cortex in these patients slowly became activated by the artificial visual stimulation, indicating that sight restoration therapies can rely on a considerable degree of spared plasticity in adulthood.

中文翻译：

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成人人视觉皮层的神经可塑性。

全世界有1-5：100的人因弱视而从未经历过正常视力，约有1：4000的人患有遗传性视网膜营养不良，并逐渐导致失明。尽管正在开发各种各样的技术和疗法来恢复视力，但仍然没有回答一个基本问题：成年人的视觉大脑是否会保留足够的塑性潜力，以在长时间的异常视觉体验后学习如何“看”眼？在这篇综述中，我们总结了一些研究，这些研究表明，有视力的成年人的视觉大脑保留了一种发育可塑性，称为稳态可塑性，并且该属性最近已成功地用于成年人弱视的康复。下一个，我们讨论了在晚期盲人患有色素性视网膜炎的成年人中，当失明发生时，以及当通过“仿生眼”部分恢复视觉刺激时，大脑回路如何重组。这些患者的主要视觉皮层被人工视觉刺激缓慢激活，这表明视力恢复疗法在成年期可以依靠相当程度的剩余可塑性。