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The following is a summary of “Neural Changes after Vision Therapy in Convergence Insufficiency: A Systematic Review,” published in the July 2024 issue of Ophthalmology by Barberán-Bernardos et al.
The study aimed to retrospectively evaluate the neural impact of vision therapy (VT) in treating convergence insufficiency (CI) and its correlation with clinical improvements associated with treatment.
They searched the PubMed and Scopus databases for literature on the neural impact of VT in CI. Only 17 articles were identified and thoroughly examined after reviewing the full texts; only 4 studies met the inclusion criteria. Data extracted from the studies included details on CI cases and controls, evaluated clinical and neural parameters, observed neural responses to VT, study types, and VT protocols. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the GRADE tool.
The result showed neural changes following VT in CI using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), revealing modifications in the functional activity of brain regions such as the frontal fields, oculomotor vermis, and cerebellum—conflicting results regarding whether the activity increases or decreases may be attributed to variations in fMRI protocols. The GRADE analysis highlighted significant concerns in the risk of bias, inconsistency, indirectness, and imprecision, leading to a very low certainty of evidence for each outcome.
Investigators concluded that the current research does not confirm neural changes following VT in CI due to the overall low quality and numerous methodological concerns.
Source: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1155/2024/5586202
