Antidepression drug Prozac may be cure for 'lazy eye'

Published on Thursday 17 April 2008 22:18

PROZAC may prove an effective treatment for a type of visual impairment as well as for depression, new research suggests.

Scientists have found that fluoxetine, the antidepressant marketed as Prozac, can rejuvenate nerve cells linked to vision in the brains of adult rats.

It returned the neurons to the "plastic" state of their youth, allowing them to recover from previous damage that affected the animals' sight.

The findings, reported in the journal Science, hint at the possibility of using Prozac to treat adult amblyopia.

Also known as "lazy eye", the relatively common condition causes one eye to be weaker than the other because it was not used enough in early childhood.

The research also provides clues on the way antidepressants regulate mood, suggesting brain plasticity may be involved.

Dr Jose Fernando Maya, from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and colleagues wrote: "Our results suggest a potential clinical application for fluoxetine in amblyopia."