In medicine, Intermittent Photic Stimulation, or IPS, is a form of visual stimulation used in conjunction with
electroencephalography
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocor ...
to investigate anomalous brain activity triggered by specific visual stimuli, such as flashing lights or patterns.
IPS and EEGs are often used to diagnose conditions such as
photosensitive epilepsy
Photosensitive epilepsy (PSE) is a form of epilepsy in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli that form patterns in time or space, such as flashing lights; bold, regular patterns; or regular moving patterns.
PSE affects approximately o ...
.
The field is relatively new and the details of use of IPS have not been widely standardized. IPS is often used in conjunction with other controllable generators of visual stimuli, such as
low-level visual stimulation
High-level and low-level, as technical terms, are used to classify, describe and point to specific goals of a systematic operation; and are applied in a wide range of contexts, such as, for instance, in domains as widely varied as computer scien ...
LLVS.
Photic stimulation may also be used to elicit myoclonus, especially cortical reflex myoclonus when present in photo-sensitive forms.
IPS may be used to stimulate the visual system for patients with
amblyopia
Amblyopia, also called lazy eye, is a disorder of sight in which the brain fails to fully process input from one eye and over time favors the other eye. It results in decreased vision in an eye that typically appears normal in other aspects. Amb ...
. This system uses a visual stimulus that is usually red in color with a frequency of about 4 Hz to stimulate the neural pathway between the retina and the visual cortex. The objective is to improve the
visual acuity
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
of an amblyopic (lazy) eye.
References
External links
An online treatment for Amblyopia
Neuroimaging
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