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Latency of the Pupil Light Reflex: Sample Rate, Stimulus Intensity, and Variation in Normal Subjects

¹From the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Veterans Administration Hospital, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; and the ²Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

PURPOSE. To investigate the clinical usefulness of the latency of the pupil light reflex by optimizing its measurement, characterizing its variability, and determining the sensitivity of pupil latency as a function of stimulus input in normal subjects.

METHODS. Computerized binocular infrared pupillography was performed in 14 eyes of seven healthy subjects. Pupils were recorded simultaneously at 60 and 1000 Hz. Each eye was alternatively stimulated eight times for 50 ms every 2.5 seconds, increasing by 0.5 log units over a 2.0-log-unit range. To determine intersubject and intereye variability, 98 eyes of 49 healthy subjects were recorded at 60 Hz over a 3.0-log-unit range (15° radius stimulation, four repetitions at each intensity).

RESULTS. Accuracy and resolution of latency were limited by the number of light reflexes used to estimate the average latency and were significantly affected by sampling rate when the number of reflexes recorded was fewer than four. Binocular recording and interpolation of the 60-Hz recording to 300 Hz added resolution to the latency. Biological variability contributed more to interindividual variability than did measurement variability. The range of intereye afferent asymmetry of latency in normal subjects was only between 8.3 and 35 ms—less with brighter stimulus intensity.

CONCLUSIONS. An optimal method for determination of the onset of the pupil light reflex was devised that consisted of filtering, interpolation of pupil recordings, and analysis of the first and second derivative of the pupil movement. Most of the variability in latency as a function of intensity in normal subjects was due to interindividual variation and latency was well matched between the two eyes of the subjects.

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