--- title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy canonical: https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/ author: TIME Video article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-05T19:42:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:38.237Z article:section: Health og:title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye og:description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy og:url: https://time.com/4154830/virtual-reality-lazy-eye/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1829 og:image:height: 1029 og:image:alt: James Blaha Vivid Vision og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye twitter:description: Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes his virtual reality games will create new solutions for vision therapy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte61632d9867e6e62/69887694f887dcc599e93e11/vividvision_1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=44e3eef7-776b-4f43-a251-e92fa9917d7c&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye [Watch (HLS stream): This Virtual Reality Game Could Help Treat Lazy Eye](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vJ5d315F.m3u8) (3:00)  _Published 2015-12-23. Vivid Vision founder James Blaha hopes to utilize virtual reality gaming to create new solutions for vision therapy_ by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Jan 5, 2016 7:42 PM UTC by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) and [Diane Tsai](https://time.com/author/diane-tsai/) Jan 5, 2016 7:42 PM UTC “People who have vision impairment are always wondering what it is they’re missing, how much their vision is kind of holding them back,” says James Blaha, 28. Blaha has lived with amblyopia and strabismus, also known as lazy eye and crossed eyes, for most of his life, and that’s what prompted him to found Vivid Vision, a virtual-reality vision therapy game company. The games are played using [Oculus Rift and send](http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/) specific images to each eye in an effort to train the lazy or crossed eye to work harder. “We’ll take specific objects in the virtual space and render them a lot brighter to the weak eye, and a lot dimmer to the strong eye,” Blaha explains. “At a certain threshold, the brain kind of says, ‘OK, there’s something unique going on in this eye that I have to pay attention to,’ and it turns it back on.” The results of an ongoing study using the technology, led by Dr. Marc Levin, A neuro-ophthalmologist at the University of California, San Francisco, are expected to be released by the end of 2016. _Video produced by Granny Cart Productions_ ## Transcript People who have vision impairment are always wondering what it is they're missing, how much their vision is kind of holding them back. Without depth perception, walking in a forest is more like walking through a hallway than it is walking through this big open place. For as long as I can remember, I've had amblyopia and strabismus. [ MUSIC ] And lyopia is basically the brain is not able to use the information coming in from the eye as well as it should. The issue is primarily a perceptual problem in the brain, so the two images don't line up, so the brain kind of takes the shortest Route to the best vision and starts ignoring one. When I was little I went to school with a patch on, and that's not fun. You can't see your friends make fun of you. How many circles do you see? Two red. Two red. And I really thought there was nothing that could be done for my condition beyond childhood Oops. I was really enthusiastic to help out a clinical trial for a new kind of therapy. [ MUSIC ] Vivid Vision is a company based here in San Francisco that's devoted to developing new virtual reality based vision therapy games. The goal of Vivid Vision Is to produce and distribute video games that can potentially treat conditions, such as lazy eye or amblyopia, which previously have had no effective treatments in the adult population. I look at VR as a way of actively controlling Visual stimulus, cuz we'll take specific objects in the virtual space and render them a lot brighter to the weak eye and then a lot dinner to the strong eye. And so at a certain threshold the brain kind of says okay there's something unique going on in this eye that I have to pay attention to and it turns it back on. So that in order to Progress in the game play, you have to be using both eyes together. If all goes well, we should have this study completed in the next year. We're interested in the depth perception that we hope will be enhanced by this treatment. Before I had no 3D vision at all. And now I have about 8 to 90 % normal [ UNKNOWN ] vision. 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