摘要：SummaryWe 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.Graphical AbstractDisplay OmittedHighlights•Infants with complete deprivation have developed better acuity than incomplete ones•Plasticity is better preserved in complete deprivation infants than in incomplete ones•Infants with complete deprivation have less myopic shift than incompletes ones•Early noisy input has the detrimental effect on human visual developmentOphthalmology; Human Physiology; Biology of Human Development
