Vision loss from by stroke may be reversible

Many stroke victims experience vision impairment following their stroke. A new study offers hope that this impairment may be reversible. Vision impairment following a stroke is estimated to affect almost 60% of stroke victims.

Doctors previously thought that the damage done to the primary visual cortex neurons was irreversible. Details of a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences points to the possibility of harnessing the brain's plasticity to recover the function of the brain's primary visual processing center.

This discovery may help development a treatment protocol that could be developed in the future that would include a visual field test and eye exam to identify discordance between the vision impairment and the degeneration of the retinal ganglion cells within the primary visual processing center.