A University of California neuroscientist has created an app that can improve users' eyesight to help them perform everyday tasks by sharpening their vision and boosting their ability to see in dim light.
UltimEyes asks users to complete tasks such as clicking on hard-to-see targets, Mashable reported.
It is designed to help rewire the brain to process the information it receives from the eyes "a technique called neuroplasticity", while also keeping the user engaged with positive reinforcement such as a point system.
Carrot Neurotechnology, a company that works to produce tools that can improve vision, developed the app.
"What I've been able to do is take my research that started looking at very simple, basic science problems and turn it into a game that anybody that anybody can play that has real-world impacts," Aaron Seitz, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, said in a UCRA video.
Seitz tested the app's effectiveness on 19 UCR baseball players. Each athlete used UltimEyes 30 times for 25-minute intervals, resulting in an average 31 percent increase in eyesight.
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Out of the 19 total players seven reached 20/7.5 vision, meaning they could see at 20 feet what someone with normal vision could from 7.5 feet.
The study is published in the journal Current Biology.