The pirate look is a time-honoured way to fix children’s “lazy eye”. The patch over the good eye forces the weak one to work, thereby preventing its deterioration. Playing video games helps, too. The neural cells corresponding to both eyes then learn to fire in synchrony so that the brain wires itself for the stereo vision required for depth perception. Left untreated past a critical age, lazy eye, or amblyopia, can result in permanently impaired vision. New studies are now showing that this condition, which affects up to 5 per cent of the population, could be repaired even past the critical age. What is more, amblyopia may provide insights into brain plasticity that could help treat a variety of other disorders related to faulty wiring, including schizophrenia, epilepsy, autism, anxiety, and addiction. These ailments are not neurodegenerative diseases that destroy part of the neural circuitry. So, if the defective circuits could be stimulated in the right way, the brain could develop normally.