Visual Snow is Alleviated by Adapting to Visual Noise

Abstract

Visual snow syndrome—characterised by flickering specks throughout the visual field and accompanied by other symptoms—can disrupt daily life and affects roughly 2% of the population. However, its neural bases remain mysterious, and treatments are lacking. Here we present a method to quickly and reliably eliminate the visual snow symptom for a period of time. Prolonged viewing of a visual stimulus can strongly reduce sensitivity to subsequent stimuli, and we tested whether such adaptation could affect visual snow. Participants with visual snow (total n = 27) viewed high-contrast dynamic noise patterns, resembling television static, and then judged the strength of the symptom. Visual snow was temporarily reduced in strength to the point that it was invisible in many conditions for most observers. The effect followed typical trends of adaptation for physical stimuli in normally sighted observers. Effect duration increased monotonically with duration of exposure to the adapter and it was specific to dynamic noise; adapting to a high contrast striped pattern had little effect on visual snow. Adaptation provides reliable experimental control over visual snow, and so is a promising tool for understanding its neural origins, developing diagnostic tests, and may also provide a basis for treatment.

What Does Visual Snow Look Like? Quantification by Matching a Simulation.

“…Recent sound therapy treatments were shown to be more effective when personalized with matching (Wang et al, 2020). Having a precise method to simulate visual snow may similarly be useful in individualizing therapies to relieve visual snow, including our own recent use of adaptation to visual noise (Montoya et al, 2023).…”