Merely 40 hours of video gaming 'can cure cataracts

40 hours of fast-paced action gaming could improve the vision of people born with cataracts, a new study has claimed.

According to a psychologist, surgery and contact lenses do not always work, and people experience visual difficulties into adulthood.

However, some of these effects can be reversed if the individual follows a short course of "game therapy".

"After playing an action video game for just 40 hours over four weeks, the patients were better at seeing small print, the direction of moving dots, and the identity of faces," the Daily Mail quoted Daphne Maurer, a psychologist as saying.

Maurer from McMaster University in Canada has researched how vision develops in individuals born with cataracts in both eyes.

Previous research found that a 40-hour "course" of video gaming could be used to treat "lazy eye" or amblyopia, a brain disorder in which the vision in one eye fails to develop properly.

"Those improvements tell us that the adult brain is still plastic enough to be trained to overcome sensory deficiencies," Maurer said.

Maurer is internationally known for her work on "synaesthetes" - a condition that makes people's brains link different senses.

The study will be presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, in a session called 'The Effects of Early Experience on Lifelong Functioning: Commitment and Resilience'.