Durable recovery from amblyopia with donepezil

• Published in: Scientific reports 2023-06, Vol.13 (1), p.10161-10161, Article 10161
• Main Authors: Wu, Carolyn, Gaier, Eric D., Nihalani, Bharti R., Whitecross, Sarah, Hensch, Takao K., Hunter, David G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 692/308/575; 692/699/3161; Acetylcholinesterase; Acuity; Age; Amblyopia - drug therapy; Animals; Children; Donepezil; Donepezil - therapeutic use; Dosage; Eye; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mice; multidisciplinary; Neuroplasticity; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Threshold limits; Visual Acuity; Visual plasticity; Visual thresholds
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-34891-5

An elevated threshold for neuroplasticity limits visual gains with treatment of residual amblyopia in older children and adults. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEI) can enable visual neuroplasticity and promote recovery from amblyopia in adult mice. Motivated by these promising findings, we sought to determine whether donepezil, a commercially available AChEI, can enable recovery in older children and adults with residual amblyopia. In this open-label pilot efficacy study, 16 participants (mean age 16 years; range 9–37 years) with residual anisometropic and/or strabismic amblyopia were treated with daily oral donepezil for 12 weeks. Donepezil dosage was started at 2.5 or 5.0 mg based on age and increased by 2.5 mg if the amblyopic eye visual acuity did not improve by 1 line from the visit 4 weeks prior for a maximum dosage of 7.5 or 10 mg. Participants