Objective: To study the effect of short-term peripheral patching on binocular dominance in adult visual cortex. Methods: Monocular short-term peripheral patching was performed on each eye (24 eyes) of 12 normal adults.
The patching was achieved by monocularly wearing a ring-shaped, translucent and plastic patch for 90 minutes.
The patch could only transmit light, but not pattern, and there was a circular hole with a visual field of 10°–15°, so
as to achieve peripheral patching. Participants completed the binocular rivalry task at baseline and 0–3, 3–6, 6–9,
9–12, 12–15, 30, 60 and 90 min after peripheral patching. The dominance duration of each eye and the number of
dominance switches between eyes were recorded. The probability of perceiving stimulus of each eye was calculated
in each time period. Each participant’s both left and right eyes performed peripheral patching one week apart. Results: Before patching, the dominance duration of the patched eye was not significantly different from the
non-patched eye (92.78±6.33 s vs 87.22±6.23 s, P>0.05), which suggests that the eye dominance was balanced.
At 0–3 min after the removal of the patch, the dominance duration of the patched eye was increased significantly
(P<0.001), and this effect existed until 30 min after the removal of the patch (P<0.05). The dominance duration
of the patched eye at post-60 min was not significantly different from the baseline (P=0.445). There was no
significant difference in the dominance switches among baseline and each period after patching (P=0.064). After
the removal of patch on the dominant eye, the amplitude of change in the dominance duration of the patched eye
at 0–3 min was not significantly different from that after the removal of patch on the non-dominant eyes (P=0.835). Conclusion: Short-term peripheral patching can also change the binocular dominance in adults, and it has the
potential to be applied in treatment of adult amblyopia. After the critical period for visual development, binocular
vision function still retains plasticity.