Could virtual reality help restore vision for stroke-induced blindness?

Researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester have received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop the promising method.

There isn’t currently thought to be any well-established therapies to help stroke patients restore their vision. Research by Krystel Huxlin from the University of Rochester’s Flaum Eye Institute found that patients can regain portions of their vision through targeted exercises that force them to use the blind portions of their visual field. Therefore, this research aims to build on Huxlin’s.

Gabriel Diaz, the principal investigator of the grant, said: “One major limitation of the current methodology is that people cannot train as effectively at home if they’re not under the supervision of a researcher who’s using an eye tracker. Eye trackers are an emerging technology in the field of virtual reality and we’re going to develop a training apparatus that could be used at home.”