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‘Lazy eye’ could change brain wiring

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New York: The most common cause of vision problems in children, popularly known as the “lazy eye”, may actually be physical manifestation of a brain disorder linked to changes in its connection to the weaker eye, a new study says.

Lazy eye – amblyopia – is a condition in children when vision does not develop properly in one eye.

“Most often in amblyopia patients, one eye is better at focusing,” said one of the researchers Bas Rokers, psychology professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.

“The brain prefers the information from that eye, and pushes down the signal coming from the other, ‘lazy’ eye. In a way, it is better to think of the better eye as a bully, rather than the poorer eye as lazy,” Rokers pointed out.

As the brain develops its preference for the dominant eye’s input, it alters its connections to the weaker eye, the study said.

“If you continually have that bullying happening, that changes the signals coming from the lazy eye,” Rokers pointed out.

Using a brain scanning method called diffusion-weighted imaging, the researchers mapped the pathways known to carry visual information from the eyes to the brain.

In people with amblyopia, the researchers saw water diffusing more easily down the brain’s visual pathways.

“What we think may be happening in amblyopia is that the conductive sheath around neurons becomes thinner,” Rokers said.

“In order to conduct information from one location to another, neurons have a sheath of material called myelin around them to insulate and speed up processing. When the myelin is thinner, there is less of it in the way and the water diffuses more easily,” Rokers said.

This understanding of the structural effects of amblyopia may improve treatments for amblyopia and similar vision disorders in which sufferers have trouble judging distance and location of objects in parts of their visual field.

The findings were published in the journal Vision Research.

Corona

Covid toll in Karnataka is a worrying sign for state government

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Even though Karnataka recorded the lowest number of Covid deaths in April since the virus struck first in 2020, the state is recording a rise in the positivity rate (1.50 per cent). Five people died from the Covid infections in April as per the statistics released by the state health department. In March, the positivity rate stood around 0.53 per cent. In the first week of April it came down to 0.38 per cent, second week registered 0.56 per cent, third week it rose to 0.79 per cent and by end of April the Covid positivity rate touched 1.19 per cent.

on an average 500 persons used to succumb everyday in the peak of Covid infection, as per the data. Health experts said that the mutated Coronavirus is losing its fierce characteristics as vaccination, better treatment facilities and awareness among the people have contributed to the lesser number of Covid deaths.

During the 4th and 6th of April two deaths were reported in Bengaluru, one in Gadag district on April 8, two deaths were reported from Belagavi and Vijayapura on April 30. The first Covid case was reported in the state in March 2020 and three Covid deaths were recorded in the month. In the following month 21 people became victims to the deadly virus, and May 2020 recorded 22 deaths. The death toll recorded everyday after May crossed three digits. However, the third wave, which started in January 2

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