Keep your eye on the ball: New app helps baseball players see farther

University of California neuroscientist, Aaron Seitz, has created an app that conditions users to see farther whether they are on or off a baseball diamond. Working with 19 players from the baseball team at the University of California, Riverside, the UltimEyes app lengthened the distance at which the players could see clearly by an average of 31 percent. The concept of the app is built upon a concept known as neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. The UltimEyes app does not have anything to do with improving the actual eye or the muscles in the eye but rather creating new neural pathways or altering existing ones. Using fuzzy patterns called Gabor stimuli, the brain is trained to process these patterns more efficiently. It is still unclear exactly how and why the app works with adult neuroplasticity and researchers don't understand what process is occurring in the brain. Researchers also don't understand why some people experience a greater improvement in vision than others. What remains to be seen is whether the vision benefits are long-term or not.