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1 From the Division of Neurology and 2 Departments of Ophthalmology and 3 Physiology, University of Toronto and University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
| Abstract |
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METHODS. Thirteen patients with fourth nerve palsy (11 chronic, 2 acute), and 10 normal subjects were studied with scleral search coils. With the head immobile, subjects made saccades to a target that moved between straight ahead and eight eccentric positions. At each target position, fixation was maintained for 3 seconds before the next saccade. From the eye position data, we computed the plane of best fit, referred to as Listings plane. Violations of Listings law were quantified by computing the "thickness" of this plane, defined as the SD of the distances to the plane from the data points.
RESULTS. Both the paretic and nonparetic eyes in patients with chronic fourth nerve palsy obeyed Listings law during fixation and saccades. However, Listings planes in both eyes had abnormal orientations, being rotated temporally, meaning the eye excyclotorted during downgaze and incyclotorted during upgaze. In contrast, the paretic eye of patients with acute fourth nerve palsy violated Listings law during saccades. During downward saccades, transient torsional deviations moved the paretic eye out of Listings plane. Torsional drifts returned the paretic eye to Listings plane during subsequent fixation.
CONCLUSIONS. During saccades, acute fourth nerve palsy violates Listings law, whereas chronic palsy obeys it, indicating that neural adaptation can restore Listings law by adjusting the innervations to the remaining extraocular muscles, even when one eye muscle remains paretic. The transient torsional deviations during downward saccades in acute palsy are attributed to pulsestep mismatch, as a result of lesions in the trochlear nerve that lead to an imbalance of phasic and tonic signals reaching the muscles.
| Introduction |
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Listings law is illustrated in Figure 1 . The eye at the center is in the primary position, and the plane of the paper is Listings plane. All the eye orientations drawn with solid lines are in accord with Listings law, because they can be reached from the primary position by rotating around axes (straight black lines extending from the globes) in Listings plane. But the position drawn with dashed lines in the illustration at top center violates Listings law, because the rotation to that orientation from primary position has its axis (white line extending from the globe) tilted out of Listings plane.
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| Methods |
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The magnitude of strabismus was measured objectively, with the prism-and-cover test, and subjectively, with the Maddox rod-and-prism test. The range of ductions was estimated independently by one of two examiners (AMFW, JAS), and the degree of duction defect was graded according to the estimated percentage of the normal duction in the fellow eye. When indicated, appropriate tests were performed to rule out myasthenia gravis, thyroid ophthalmopathy, other orbital diseases, or intracranial lesions.
In this investigation, magnetic resonance (MR) or computed tomographic (CT) imaging were performed in all patients, although imaging is not our standard practice for all such patients. CT images of the head with contrast were obtained in all patients with ischemic risk factors and in patients more than 50 years of age. Those with abnormal CT images underwent further investigation, with MR imaging. Serial axial and sagittal T1- and T2-weighted MR images with gadolinium enhancement were obtained (slice thickness, 5 mm) in all patients less than 50 years of age.
Ten normal subjects served as the control (five women; mean age, 49 ± 12 years; median, 55; range, 1969).
Eye Movement Recordings
Eye position was measured with search coils while subjects fixated a red laser spot of 0.25° diameter, rear projected onto a vertical flat screen 1 m away from the nasion. The laser was programmed to appear in nine different target positions, arranged in a 3 x 3 square. The middle row of this array was at eye level, with the other two 10° above and below. In each row, the center target lay in the subjects midsagittal plane, the other two 10° to the right and left of it.
With the head immobilized and with one eye covered, subjects were instructed to follow the laser spot as it stepped among positions. At each position the laser halted for 3 seconds. In the horizontal target sequence, the laser started in the center, then stepped to the 10° right position, then back to center, then to the 10° left positioncycling through this pattern 20 times in each eye. The vertical sequence was the same but with the laser stepping center-upcenter-down. The two diagonal sequences stepped along oblique lines, between opposite corners of the target array. Recordings were then made with the other eye fixating and the fellow eye occluded. Recordings were not made during binocular viewing. To avoid fatigue, breaks were provided approximately every 2 minutes for 1 to 3 minutes.
Eye positions were measured by a three-dimensional (3-D) magnetic search coil technique, using a 6-ft (183-cm) diameter coil field arranged in a cube (CNC Engineering, Seattle, WA). In each eye, the subject wore a dual-lead scleral coil annulus (Skalar Instrumentation, Delft, The Netherlands). Horizontal, vertical, and torsional movements were calibrated by attaching the scleral coil to a rotating protractor before each experiment. The coil was first calibrated for ±30° torsionally in the straight-ahead position. The protractor was then rotated 30° to the right, and the signal was measured again as the mounted coil was rotated ± 30° torsionally. The same procedure was performed with the protractor rotated 30° up. Phase detectors using amplitude modulation as described by Robinson9 provided signals of torsional gaze position within the linear range. There was minimal crosstalk. Horizontal and vertical movements produced deflections in the torsional channel of less than 4% of the amplitude of the horizontal and vertical movements. The difference in torsional deflections between the straight-ahead and 30° right (or up) positions was less than 4%. Torsional precision was approximately ±0.2°.
To measure the offset of coil signal, during the gimbal calibration, the coil was rotated through 360° to measure its maximum and minimum readings. If there was no offset, these two readings would be equal and opposite. If they were not, the mean of the two readings was the offset, which was then subtracted from all coil recordings.
After the scleral coils were inserted onto the subjects eyes, horizontal and vertical eye movements were calibrated, with saccades from the straight-ahead reference position to steps of a laser target (see later description of reference position and Listings primary position). Consistency of calibrated positions before and after insertion of the coils provided evidence that the gimbal calibrations were valid. Because torsional eye position depended on the same magnetic field as vertical eye position, the accuracy of vertical calibration before and after insertion of the coils provided further evidence that the torsional calibration was also accurate.
The reference position, relative to which all eye positions were expressed, was defined by measuring the coil readings while the subject fixated a target straight ahead. To assess torsional coil slippage, throughout the experiment, the subject was required to fixate the same straight-ahead target repeatedly. Any discrepancy in voltage readings associated with reference position was corrected for by resetting the torsional position to the setting measured at the beginning of a trial during each straight-ahead fixation.
Eye position data were filtered with a bandwidth of 0 to 90 Hz and digitized at 200 Hz. They were recorded on disk for off-line analysis. Analog data were also displayed in real time by a rectilinear thermal array recorder (model TA 2000; Gould Inc., Cleveland, OH).
Data Analyses and Statistical Methods
Eye position and angular velocity were computed from coil signals.10
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For analysis, fixations were defined as periods when eye velocity was less than 20 deg/sec, and saccades when eye velocity exceeded 50 deg/sec. Coil signals were converted into eye-position quaternions, by a method described previously.11
Quaternions represent each eye position as a fixed-axis rotation from a reference position. This reference position was recorded when subjects looked straight ahead at the center target. Listings law predicts that during fixation and saccades, the quaternion vectors of eye positions lie in a plane. This plane is not necessarily Listing plane, unless the reference position happens to be the primary position, but by computing the orientation of the plane with respect to the gaze direction at reference position, one can determine the primary position and the orientation of Listings plane.11
Listings primary position is not the primary position commonly used clinically, which refers to the straight-ahead gaze position and roughly corresponds to the center of the oculomotor range. In this study, all plots of eye position were set up so that the origin of the coordinate system (the zero position) was the straight-ahead reference position.
Figure 2 shows the 3-D eye position data from a normal subject fixating nine target positions. Listings plane is the best-fit plane through the data cloud of eye positions. To assess the scatter in the data, we measured the distance of each eye position from the plane of best fit. The SD of these distances we called the "thickness" of the plane. The less the thickness, the better the data fit Listings law.
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We defined the direction of torsion from the subjects point of view. Rotation of the upper pole of the iris toward the subjects right shoulder was designated clockwise (CW), whereas rotation of the upper pole of the iris toward the subjects left shoulder was designated counterclockwise (CCW).
Oculography was performed at one point in each patients course (Table 1) . Thus, changes from normal, rather than serial intrasubject changes, were available for analyses. The eye that patients habitually used for fixation was not controlled. We compared the thickness of Listings plane between patients and normal subjects. In the Results section, we report only the thickness of Listings plane during paretic eye viewing. The results during nonparetic eye viewing were similar.
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The research protocol was approved by the University Health Network Ethics Committee and adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects.
| Results |
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Chronic Fourth Nerve Palsy
Figure 3
shows the 3-D eye position data and the fitted Listings plane of a patient (SF) with chronic left fourth nerve palsy, during fixation with the paretic left eye. The thickness of Listings plane was 1.0° in the right and left eyes. Listings planes rotated temporally 15.4° in the right eye and 9.1° in the left eye. In this patient, Listings law was obeyed, with temporal rotation of Listings planes in both eyes.
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Acute Fourth Nerve Palsy
During saccades, the thickness of Listings plane of the paretic eye, averaged across the two patients with acute palsy, was 8.3 ± 0.4° (P < 0.001), which was 10 times the thickness in normal control subjects. The plane of the nonparetic eye was of normal thickness. When we fit the data from the paretic eye with curved surfaces rather than planes, the thickness scarcely diminished. It averaged 8.0 ± 1.2° when the surface was second order and 7.7 ± 1.2° when it was third order, compared with 0.7 ± 0.3° and 0.6 ± 0.3°, respectively, in normal control subjects (P < 0.001). Thus, during saccades in acute fourth nerve palsy, not only was Listings law violated but also Donders lawthat is, the paretic eye did not show one consistent angle of torsion in any given gaze direction, but rather an abnormally wide range of torsional angles.
Figure 4A shows the eye movements made by patient KS while the paretic right eye viewed a target that stepped from center to 10° up, to center, to 10° down. When the target stepped downward (that is, from 10° up to center and from center to 10° down), the paretic right eye made hypermetric downward and leftward saccades. Overshoot saccades were each followed immediately without interval by corrective upward and rightward movements (Fig. 4A , top panel, vertical and horizontal traces). At the same time, it made rapid clockwise movements, defined as rotations of the upper pole of the iris toward the subjects right shoulder, which were each followed by slow counterclockwise drifts (Fig. 4A , top panel, torsional trace). In the nonparetic left eye, vertical saccades were of normal amplitude, and were not associated with overshoot saccades or transient torsion (Fig. 4A , bottom panel). The same pattern was also observed in the other patient with acute right fourth nerve palsy.
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| Discussion |
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Neural Implementation of Listings law
Listings law holds during fixation, saccades, and smooth pursuit, but fails during sleep16
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and during vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR).18
Its failure shows that the eye muscles are capable of violating Listings law, and it is therefore not the muscles but the neural commands driving fixation, saccades, and pursuit that constrain the eye to obey the law.2
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The muscles may, however, be arranged in a way that simplifies the brains work in implementing Listings law,20
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as in the "active-pulley hypothesis,"25
which says that contraction of the global layer of the extraocular muscles rotates the globe, whereas contraction of the orbital layer displaces the connective tissue sleeves, or pulleys, that direct the paths of the muscles.
In our patients with acute fourth nerve palsy, Listings law was violated in the paretic eye during saccades. In patients with chronic fourth nerve palsy, both eyes obeyed Listings law, even though the superior oblique in the paretic eye was still markedly weak, as indicated by restricted duction and incomitant hypertropia. This recovery shows that the neural circuitry underlying Listings law is adaptive, restoring the law despite a palsied muscle. Neural adaptation must work by readjusting the innervations to the remaining extraocular muscles. It may also adjust the pulleys of the horizontal and vertical rectus muscles27 (but not the trochlear pulley, because it is fixed), although, theoretically, Listings law could be restored with or without a new pattern of pulley placement and motion.
Functional Significance of Listings law
Chronic fourth nerve palsy has abnormal torsion, as indicated in the temporal shift of Listings plane, but nonetheless obeys Listings law. That Listings law was reestablished in these patients without restoration of normal torsion suggests that there is some advantage to Listings law that goes beyond any specific set of torsional angles. That is, there is some advantage to keeping the axes of eye rotations in a plane, and the orientation of the plane may not matter so much.
The functional significance of Listings law is uncertain. Hering28 and Helmholtz4 proposed that it optimizes certain aspects of image flow across the retina, thereby simplifying the neural processing of visual information. Because optical flow depends on the eyes motion relative to space, both theories tacitly assume that the eyes rotates relative to space in the way dictated by Listings law. But, in fact, it is eye rotation relative to the head that follows Listings law, whereas, owing to head movement, eye rotation relative to space does not.29 30 31 Thus, theories based on optical flow probably do not explain Listings law.
Fick and Wundt proposed that Listings law enhances motor efficiency by minimizing eccentricity during motion of the eye.4 Minimizing eccentricity during movement may reduce the elastic recoiling force acting on the eye and therefore reduce the work load on the eye muscles, or it may bring the eye the same advantage that staying near the center court brings a squash player, namely swift and flexible responses to incoming stimuli. By ensuring that all gaze shifts toward and away from primary position are made along the shortest path, Listings law permits quick responses to unpredictable targets that may appear from any direction.
These motor advantages may be regained when Listings law is reestablished in patients with chronic fourth nerve palsy. After adaptation, the only difference from normal individuals is that primary position, and therefore Listings plane, is farther temporal. Each of our 11 patients with chronic palsy showed temporal rotation of Listings plane in both eyes, in contrast to 1 reported patient with nasal rotation in the nonparetic eye.32 This temporal rotation may serve some functional purpose, or it may be an unavoidable consequence of the palsy. The inferior rectus attempts to compensate for the deficits of the palsied superior oblique, causing abnormal excyclotorsion on downgaze, and so rotating Listings plane in the paretic eye. The temporal rotation of Listings plane of the nonparetic eye can be explained by a conjugate increase in activity of the inferior rectus of the nonparetic eye.
Transient Torsional Deviations in Acute Fourth Nerve Palsy
Abnormal torsional deviations have been reported in patients with medullary and cerebellar lesions. Torsional pulsion of saccades (torsipulsion), consisting of torsional fast eye movements away from the side of lesion (from examiners viewpoint), induced during saccades downward or away from the side of lesion, has been recorded in patients with lateral medullary infarction.33
Torsional blips, consisting of torsional fast eye movements followed by slow exponential drifts in the opposite direction during horizontal and vertical saccades, were observed in a patient with infarction of the dorsolateral medulla and cerebellum.34
Damage to the medulla and the cerebellum may disturb the neural commands that normally prevent or correct torsional deviations during saccades.
We found that in acute fourth nerve palsy, both Listings and Donders laws failed during saccades, but the eye then drifted back into Listings plane during steady fixation. This behavior indicates a pulsestep mismatch. In normal saccades, a pulse of innervation, consisting of a high-frequency burst of phasic activity in the agonist motoneurons drives the eye rapidly to its target.35 36 Once the eye has reached its target, agonist motoneurons assume a new, higher-than-resting level of tonic innervation, constituting saccadic step of innervation, which holds the eye in its new position.35 36 If the pulse drives the eye to some position that does not correspond to the step command, a pulse-step mismatch occurs, so that the eye drifts, after every saccade, to a position dictated by the step command.
In peripheral nerve palsy, both the burst neurons and the neural integrator are presumed to be normal, generating the correct pulse and step commands, which are sent to the peripheral nerve. We postulate that peripheral nerve damage affects the normal transmission of these commands to motoneurons, resulting in a pulsestep mismatch. There are several ways a nerve lesion might cause pulse-step mismatch: (1) The damaged nerve might be unable to transmit the high firing rates seen during the pulse; (2) it may be unable to respond to the rapid changes in firing rate at the start and the end of the pulse (that is, acting as a low-pass filter), distorting its temporal shape; or (3) it may alter the balance of forces among the muscles, perhaps repositioning the muscle pulleys. Whatever the mechanism, our findings show that in patients with acute fourth nerve palsy, phasic neural activity drove the eye into abnormal torsional angles, but the sustained step command specified a torsional position in Listings plane. During saccades, both Listings and Donders laws failed, but afterward, during fixation, both laws were restored as the eye drifted back into Listings plane.
On the basis of this finding, we can predict similar deficits in other eye movements in acute fourth nerve palsy. During saccades between tertiary positions, we would expect larger violations of Listings and Donders laws than we found in the largely radial movements, to and from the center, in the current study, because nonradial movements involve more torsional velocity, and therefore provide more opportunity for torsional pulsestep mismatch. We would also expect violations of both laws during pursuit, especially in tertiary positions, but these violations should be slight, because pursuit is slower than saccades, and the velocity commands that drive the eye out of Listings plane are therefore smaller, and eye motion is dominated by the position commands. Similarly, we would expect the VOR to rotate the eyes about axes that tilt in an abnormal way as a function of eye position, with larger effects at higher speed of rotation.18 37
| Appendix 1 |
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for describing eye position and velocity. Details of these representations and the algorithms for computing them from search coil signals are described previously.11 The angular position vector q (actually the vector part of the quaternion for that position) expresses the 3-D orientation of the eye in terms of its rotational displacement from some reference positionusually the primary position. The vector lies along the axis of the rotation according to the right-hand rule; its length is sin(a/2), where a is the amplitude of the rotation. The component qT indicates the amount of rotation away from reference position in the clockwise direction (i.e., around a forward-pointing axis); qV is the downward component and qH is the leftward component.
To quantify adherence to Listings law, we fitted q to a plane by approximating the torsional component of q, qT, with an affine, or first-order polynomial, function of the vertical and horizontal components, qV and qH
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| Footnotes |
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Submitted for publication October 9, 2001; revised January 24, 2002; accepted February 1, 2002.
Commercial relationships policy: N.
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C.
1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Corresponding author: Agnes M. F. Wong, Department of Ophthalmology, University Health Network, Toronto Western Hospital, West Wing 5-437, 399 Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 2S8; agnes.wong{at}utoronto.ca.
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