Why amblyopia (lazy eye) cannot be surgically or anyhow treated at adulthood? I know that if treated properly at childhood that eye can function normally, but why is it hard to develop it later?

Question

Why amblyopia (lazy eye) cannot be surgically or anyhow treated at adulthood? I know that if treated properly at childhood that eye can function normally, but why is it hard to develop it later?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Just to be clear, amblyopia doesn’t refer to a visible misalignment of the eyes or something along those lines, although that can be a *cause* of amblyopia.

The issue itself arises from development of the brain and its not utilizing the affected eye sufficiently. It can occur with no structural problem in the eye at all. So the problem isn’t that something in the eye needs to be fixed, rather, for some reason the portion of the brain that eye stimulates wasn’t properly stimulated and didn’t develop normally.

We don’t have a good ‘surgical’ or other treatment for brain development, outside of “catch the root cause early while the brain is still developing, and fix that, so the brain develops correctly”