We followed visual development in a rare yet large sample of patients with congenital bilateral cataract for 4 years. We divided the patients into two groups: a complete deprivation group with no response to a flashlight pointing to either of their eyes and otherwise an incomplete deprivation group. All the patients received cataract surgery at age of 3 months. From 27 months onward, the complete deprivation group showed better developmental outcomes in acuity and eyeball growth than the incomplete deprivation group. Such a seemingly counterintuitive finding is consistent with research on visually deprived animals. Plasticity is better preserved in animals receiving a short period of complete visual deprivation from birth than in animals who saw diffuse light. The current finding that plasticity in visual development is better preserved in human infants with complete visual deprivation than in those who can see diffuse light but not patterned visual input has important clinical implications.

我们对罕见的先天性双侧白内障患者样本中的视觉发育进行了长达4年的观察。我们将患者分为两组：完全剥夺组，对手电筒的两只眼睛都没有反应，否则为不完全剥夺组。所有患者均在3个月大时接受了白内障手术。从27个月起，完全剥夺组比不完全剥夺组表现出更好的视力和眼球发育结果。这种看似违背直觉的发现与对视觉上被剥夺的动物的研究相一致。与那些看到漫射光的动物相比，在出生后短暂受到完全视觉剥夺的动物中，可塑性得到更好的保存。