%0 Journal Article
%T Collective plasticity of binocular interactions in the adult visual system.
%A Wang M
%A McGraw PV
%A Ledgeway T
%J Sci Rep
%V 14
%N 1
%D 2024 05 7
%M 38714660
%F 4.996
%R 10.1038/s41598-024-57276-8
%X Binocular visual plasticity can be initiated via either bottom-up or top-down mechanisms, but it is unknown if these two forms of adult plasticity can be independently combined. In seven participants with normal binocular vision, sensory eye dominance was assessed using a binocular rivalry task, before and after a period of monocular deprivation and with and without selective attention directed towards one eye. On each trial, participants reported the dominant monocular target and the inter-ocular contrast difference between the stimuli was systematically altered to obtain estimates of ocular dominance. We found that both monocular light- and pattern-deprivation shifted dominance in favour of the deprived eye. However, this shift was completely counteracted if the non-deprived eye's stimulus was selectively attended. These results reveal that shifts in ocular dominance, driven by bottom-up and top-down selection, appear to act independently to regulate the relative contrast gain between the two eyes.