|
|
||||||||
From the Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri.
| Abstract |
|---|
|
|
|---|
METHODS. Physical far and near targets were used to evoke large (
8°) symmetric convergence eye movements in four adult macaque monkeys (two with strabismus, two normal), using positive-feedback rewards. One strabismic monkey had infantile-onset, small-angle esotropia (small-eso
2°) induced by alternating occlusion from birth to age 9 months. The other strabismic monkey had naturally occurring, large-angle (
25°) infantile-onset esotropia (large-eso). Visual acuity was normal in each eye as measured by spatial sweep visually evoked potentials (VEPs). Eye movements were recorded using magnetic search coils.
RESULTS. When viewing binocularly, both normal monkeys exhibited accurate, stereotyped symmetric convergence movements that achieved 87% to 96% of the required change in vergence angle by the end of the initial movement. In contrast, the small-eso monkeys convergence response when viewing binocularly was variable, strikingly asymmetric, usually accompanied by a disjunctive saccade, and subnormal, achieving only 56% of required vergence. The convergence response of the large-eso monkey was also asymmetric and weak, achieving 18% of the required vergence and employing conjugate saccades to refixate the near target. Monocular viewing (i.e., accommodative vergence) caused substantial reductions in both convergence amplitudes and velocities in the normal monkeys, but had a minor effect on the vergence behavior of the strabismic animals.
CONCLUSIONS. Monkeys with small- and large-angle infantile esotropia have striking maldevelopments of binocular (disparity-driven) convergence and use accommodative vergence and saccades to refixate near targets. Their vergence behavior resembles that in esotropic humans. The maldevelopment may be explained in large part by the paucity of binocular connections recently described in the visual cortex of esotropic macaques.
Many of the eye movement deficits of esotropic macaques are similar to those described in humans. In particular, directional deficits of pursuit eye movement and ocular fixation suggest that these animal are appropriate models for investigating the neural mechanisms of human strabismus.17 18 Studies of esotropic macaques have shown, using photographic methods19 or eye movement recording,18 20 that the vergence error resembles that found in humans, in that it is uniform in different gaze positions (i.e., concomitant or nonparalytic). However, the dynamic properties of vergence in these monkeys are unknown. Eye movement recordings in esotropic humans have revealed major deficits of disparity-induced vergence, with preservation of accommodative vergence.21 22 The human esotropes also show an abnormally high prevalence of disjunctive saccades during symmetric vergence trials.21 23 The purpose of the present study was to describe symmetric convergence eye movements evoked by disparity and/or accommodative cues in esotropic macaque, with the goal of determining whether the vergence deficits in these animals mimic those in human esotropia.
| Methods |
|---|
|
|
|---|
|
15 cyc/deg). Cycloplegic refraction revealed mild anisometropia in normal monkey RH and esotropic monkey CT. Monocular VEPs obtained using a flash stimulus and an array of electrodes across the occiput showed no signs of albinism or achiasma in naturally strabismic monkey TM.26 27 28 Funduscopic examination revealed normal pigmentation and no evidence of foveal hypoplasia or other stigmata of ocular albinism. Automated single-cover tests, using liquid crystal shutter goggles, documented a concomitant small-angle esotropia (small-eso) in monkey CT and a concomitant large-angle esotropia (large-eso) in monkey TM (Table 1) .20 Both strabismic monkeys preferred to fixate using the left eye. (They resembled humans with strabismus who often display a fixation preference or a dominant eye, but lack acuity decrements sufficient to label the nonpreferred eye amblyopic.) In addition to the strabismus, the esotropic monkeys displayed, under conditions of monocular viewing, the mild latent nystagmus (slow phase <1 deg/sec), the nasotemporal asymmetry of horizontal smooth pursuit, and the asymmetric horizontal motion VEPs that typify infantile strabismus.11
Scleral Coil and Head Restraint Surgery
After initial training, the monkeys were implanted with subconjunctival magnetic search coils in both eyes (a modification of the technique of Judge et al.29 ) and a custom-built polycarbonate head restraint device was attached to the skull.30 The surgical procedure was performed under aseptic conditions using general (intramuscular ketamine and isoflurane by endotracheal tube) and topical anesthesia (proparacaine drops). A 360° conjunctival peritomy was completed, and the coil was attached to the sclera 3 mm anterior to the extraocular muscle insertions, using biological adhesive (Vetbond; 3M Company, St. Paul, MN). The coil wires were looped laterally into a pocket created in the temporal quadrant of Tenons capsule, and the conjunctiva was reposited to its natural position at the limbus. The scalp was opened along a sagittal incision using a Bovie cutter and the skull was cleaned. The polycarbonate head restraint was attached using four slotted bolts drilled into the skull. The coil wires were tunneled from the lateral orbit beneath the scalp to connectors at the top of the head restraint. The wires, bolts, connectors, and base of the restraint were encased in dental acrylic, poured and shaped over the skull. An antibiotic-corticosteroid ointment (Cortisporin; GlaxoWellcome; Research Triangle Park, NC) was applied to the conjunctivae and the edges of the scalp wound. The animal was awakened and returned to its home cage. Postoperative analgesia was administered for 72 hours (buprenorphine intramuscularly every 8 hours). The coil wires were used for measurement of passive current only. Neither the coils nor head restraint caused chronic irritation or discomfort to the animals.
Stimulus Presentation and Eye Movement Recording
Within a few days after the coil surgery each animal was returned to the primate chair for initial eye movement recording. The monkey sat with the head restraint secured in the middle of 3 x 3-ft field coils. Standard magnetic search coil techniques were used to record eye position.31 32 Distant and near targets, subtending 0.5° of arc, were positioned in the midsagittal plane (cyclopean center) of the head. The distant target (located 60 cm from the eyes) was a red laser spot projected onto the back of a translucent screen, and the near target (15 cm from the eyes) was a red light-emitting diode (LED). These targets are known to elicit robust vergence responses in normal macaque monkeys,33 and stationary monochromatic light targets have been shown to be adequate stimuli for accommodation in humans (they are suboptimal when dynamic accommodation is needed to maintain focus on a moving target).34 35
The average interpupillary distance (IPD) in the monkeys was 30 mm, requiring a convergence angle of 2.8° to bifixate the distant target and an angle of 10.4° to bifixate the near target. Thus, a step change in vergence from distant to near target demanded a +7.6° step change of vergence. The exact convergence angle demanded varied slightly (
0.6°) as a function of each animals IPD. To facilitate analysis and simplify graphic interpretation of the results, the distant target was regarded as optical infinity (0° vergence) and all the graphs of vergence angle and eye position in the results have been adjusted accordingly. Eye position was calibrated by use of a calibration coil and by having the animal perform a lever-response task in which he had to detect 50% dimming of the target within 300 ms, while the target remained stationary at known horizontal and vertical positions. Experiments in normal and strabismic primates have confirmed that foveal fixation is necessary for accurate performance of this task.30 The calibration sequence was repeated separately for each eye under conditions of monocular viewing. After the initial session, calibration was rapid and remained stable from day to day. The lever was removed, and accurate fixation was encouraged thereafter by rewarding the animal for keeping the eye within a certain window-of-target position.
Eye movements were recorded under conditions of binocular viewing in sessions lasting approximately 1 hour over a period of several weeks. The room was lit with dimmed background illumination, and the intensity of the laser spot and LED was 3.0 log units above our threshold for detection of a 100-ms flash.36 The targets were presented in repeated trials (typically 150 per session). To initiate a trial, the animal had to maintain eye position of the right or left eye within ±1.5° of the distant target for a randomized interval of 2 to 5 seconds. After which, the distant target was extinguished and the near target illuminated for an interval of 2 seconds. To receive a reward (a squirt of juice), the monkey had to respond within 1 second of onset of the near target by moving either eye to within a ±1.5° window of near-target position for an interval of 1 second or more. If the monkey failed to fixate the distant target for the full randomized interval or did not move the eye(s) to the near target to satisfy the specified temporalspatial requirements, a buzzer sounded to provide negative auditory feedback, the trial was aborted, a time-out interval ensued, and no reward was delivered.
The onset and offset of the targets was controlled by a computer (Macintosh; Apple Computer, Cupertino, CA, running Spike2 data acquisition/analysis software with a model 1401 digitalanalog signal processor; Cambridge Electronic Design, Cambridge, UK). Voltages proportional to horizontal and vertical eye position were digitized at 500 Hz. To obtain eye velocity signals, the eye position signals were passed through a (DC to 90 Hz) finite-impulse response filter and differentiated. Angular resolution of the system was 10 minutes of arc (0.17 ± 0 0.08°) with a linearity ±1% over a range of ±40°.
Data Analysis
Eye movements were analyzed off-line with a modified version of data acquisition/analysis software (Spike2; Cambridge Electronic Design) and averages were plotted with graphics software (Igor Graphics; WaveMetrics, Lake Oswego, OR). Vergence angle was defined as the difference between horizontal left eye position and right eye position (LE minus RE), with eye positions to the right designated as positive values and to the left as negative values. Thus, convergence yielded positive values of vergence and divergence negative values. Unequal movements of the eyes were considered vergence, and equal movements were considered to be saccades. For calculating latencies and amplitudes, onset of eye movement was defined as eye velocity exceeding 10 deg/sec, and initial amplitude was eye position 250 ms after the onset of movement. Trials chosen for analysis were those in which the monkey fulfilled the criteria for stable fixation of the distant target and initiated a convergence or saccadic movement within 750 ms of the target step to the near position. Means ± SEM are reported in the results and were compared using the t-test with significance defined as the 5% confidence level.
| Results |
|---|
|
|
|---|
|
1°) of eye position while maintaining convergence in approximately 30% of trials.
Convergence Variability in Small-Angle Esotropia
Monkey CT had small-angle (1.6° ± 0.7°) esotropia, and his convergence responses when viewing binocularly were of two types: (1) a sustained-convergence response, observed in 73% of trials, and (2) a pulsatile-convergence response, observed in the other 27% of trials. (Binocular viewing means that both eyes were open and uncovered; it does not mean that both eyes were aligned on the target or that the animal had normal binocular perception.) Representative trials of the preponderant, sustained-convergence type are shown in Figure 2A . Note that the monkey preferred to fixate using the left eye, and the angle of right-eye esotropia (i.e., the baseline vergence angle) fluctuated slightly from trial to trial.
|
Figure 2B shows representative trials in which monkey CT responded with pulsatile rather than sustained convergence. The duration of the pulses ranged from 363 to 780 ms (mean, 488 ± 120 ms). The variability of latency and imprecision in amplitude for pulsatile responses was equivalent to that measured during sustained responses (mean latency pulsatile responses, 184 ± 82 ms; mean amplitude, 5.1° ± 1.6°). The pulsatile-convergence responses in monkey CT represent anomalous vergence behavior that cannot be explained as an artifact of the experimental paradigm or reward system. The strategy did not lead to a reward, because eye position of the preferred left eye did not remain within 1° of the near target angle for 1 second. The two normal monkeys exhibited convergence pulses of this general type in fewer than approximately 3% of all trials.
Minimal Convergence in Large-Angle Esotropia
Monkey TM had large-angle (25° ± 2.1°) esotropia. He never generated convergence of more than approximately 2° in response to the near target. The trials displayed in Figure 2C show that when viewing binocularly the monkey preferred to fixate using the left eye and exhibited a right-eye esotropic deviation. A step change in position of the target to the near location evoked a relatively conjugate, rightward saccadic eye movement of approximately 4° to allow the preferred left eye to refixate the near target and the monkey to receive the reward (mean right eye amplitude +3.7° ± 0.6° and left eye amplitude +4.0° ± 0.4°). Minimal convergence during and after the saccades produced fluctuations in vergence angle and convergence of 0.5° or less or 18% of the near target angle of 8°.
The mean latency of the saccadic-vergence response (510 ± 107 ms) was more than twice the delay recorded in the small-eso and normal monkeys.
Convergence performance, measured in vergence position as a percentage of near target position, is summarized for the four monkeys in Figure 3 . The convergence accuracy of the two strabismic monkeys was significantly weaker than that of either normal animal (n = 50 trials, t-test, P < 0.01). The eye position tracings of Figures 1 and 2 also show that saccades during convergence occurred with much greater frequency in the strabismic compared with the normal monkeys. Saccades during the initial 200 ms of eye movement were uncommon in the normal monkeys (18% of trials in monkey ZN and 24% of trials in monkey RH), but occurred during most of the trials in the two esotropic animals (83% in small-eso monkey CT and 96% in large-eso monkey TM).
|
The average eye velocity profiles shown in Figure 4 were generated by having the computer first identify the peak eye velocity of each eye in each trial (n = 50), calculate the mean latency for all peaks in that eye, and align the velocity peaks at the mean latency for that eye to nullify variability in latency from trial to trial. The top panel of Figure 4 shows the averaged velocity responses of normal monkey ZN, with the left eye response (rightward velocity) upward and right eye response (leftward velocity) downward. The velocity profiles for the left and right eye were similar in shape but differed in magnitude; peak left eye velocity was +159.0 ± 3.2 deg/sec and peak right eye velocity was -93 ± 2.8 deg/sec (difference = 66 deg/sec or 42% lower in the right eye; the amplitude of adduction of the right eye in these trials was, on average, 17% lower than the amplitude of adduction in the left eye). Despite the sizable asymmetry in average peak velocity between the eyes, monkey ZN had interocular asynchrony (a delay in the right eye peak) of only 3.7 ± 2.5 ms (Fig. 5) . The interocular asynchrony in normal monkey RH was even smaller, measuring 2.3 ± 0.6 ms. Monkey RH had a peak left eye velocity of +101 ± 3.6 deg/sec and a peak right eye velocity of -72 ± 2.4 deg/sec (difference = 29 deg/sec or 29% lower in the right eye which adducted on average 3% more than the left eye).
|
|
Accommodative/Monocular Viewing Convergence in Normal Monkeys
In the previous experiments the monkeys viewed binocularly and were able to use both binocular disparity cues and accommodative (blur) cues to drive convergence. To assess the relative contribution of these two cues in the normal and strabismic monkeys, we eliminated binocular disparity by recording vergence to the near target under conditions of monocular viewing. The near target, as in all previous experiments, remained positioned in the midsagittal plane of the head to evoke symmetric convergence.
Figure 6A shows representative convergence responses in normal monkey ZN viewing monocularly with the left eye. When his responses while viewing binocularly (Fig. 1A) were compared with those when viewing monocularly (Fig. 5A) , the monocular responses were typically lower in amplitude, contained more saccades and were less systematic than the binocular. Specifically, monocular viewing (Fig. 5A) caused lower amplitudes of adduction of the occluded right eye, versional abducting microsaccades of the right eye approximately 40 ms after the onset of convergence, and combined vergence and versional saccadic oscillations of both eyes for several hundred milliseconds after the onset of the response. The amplitude of the evoked convergence in these trials was 1.7° ± 0.4° less (20% less) than the amplitude recorded when viewing binocularly (t-test, P < 0.01). Mean latency when viewing monocularly (175 ± 8.1 ms) was comparable to that recorded when viewing binocularly (t-test, P = 0.24). The monocular-viewing vergence responses of normal monkey RH (not shown) were similar. In both normal monkeys, the amplitude of initial convergence when viewing monocularly was 20% to 31% lower, and the prevalence of saccades during vergence three to four-fold greater, than when viewing binocularly: percent trials with saccades when viewing was monocular 82% versus binocular 18% in monkey ZN, and monocular 87% versus binocular 24% in monkey RH (t-test, P
0.01).
|
The monocular viewing responses of large-eso monkey TM (Fig. 6C) were poor and equivalent to those during binocular viewing (Fig. 2C) , in both amplitude of convergence and latency (t-test, P = 0.42 and 0.25). Unlike the two normal monkeys, the frequency of saccadic vergence in the strabismic monkeys was the same for monocular and binocular viewing (t-test, P = 0.22 monkey CT and 0.12 monkey TM). Disconjugate saccades occurred during convergence in approximately 75% of trials for small-eso monkey CT and approximately 95% of trials for large-eso monkey TM, whether they viewed monocularly or binocularly.
Accommodative-Convergence/Accommodation Ratios
The synkinetic relationship between accommodative convergence and accommodation is expressed clinically as a ratio (AC/A, in prism diopters/sphere diopters with 1 prism diopter = 0.57°).38 A stimulus AC/A ratio is measured in the typical clinical setting with the assumption that lens accommodation matches the accommodative demand of the near target to eliminate all blur. Measurement of an actual response AC/A requires recording with an optometer.23 We measured a stimulus AC/A ratio in each of our four monkeys with the assumption that they performed the 5.0 D of accommodation demanded for the near target (the distant target [0.6 m] demanded 1.6 D of accommodation and the near target [0.15 m] demanded 6.6 D, where D = 1/target distance in meters). The stimulus AC/A ratios in normal monkeys ZN and RH measured 2.66 and 2.54, respectively. These values agree with response AC/A ratios (2.53.0) calculated from the data of Cumming and Judge3 (their Fig. 3A , monkey H), who used an infrared optometer and eye coils to measure lens accommodation and vergence simultaneously in a normal monkey. The stimulus AC/A ratio in small-eso monkey CT was also normal: 2.80. The very weak accommodative vergence response of large-eso monkey TM yielded a very low stimulus AC/A ratio: 0.52. The older age of monkey TM (19 years compared with 5 years for monkeys ZN and CT) may account in part for his low ratio, as stimulus AC/A ratios fall considerably in normal humans with onset of presbyopia.23 39
Convergence When Viewing Binocularly Versus Monocularly
To reveal with greater clarity the degree to which binocular disparity cues enhanced convergence, average convergence velocity and position responses were plotted (Figures 7 8 9) in normal monkey ZN and the two esotropic monkeys for binocular versus monocular viewing (n = 20 trials). In describing these results, we refer to binocular viewing as disparity vergence and monocular viewing as accommodative vergence though obviously the monkeys had access to both disparity and accommodative cues when viewing binocularly.
|
|
|
0.01). Large-eso monkey TMs (Fig. 7C) accommodative and disparity vergence velocities were also equivalent, but substantially weaker than either the small-eso or the normal monkeys responses (89% and 88% lower than the disparity and accommodation velocities, respectively, of the normal monkey). The difference in amplitude of convergence for the two viewing conditions is shown in Figure 8 . Two hundred milliseconds after the onset of the response, disparity vergence in normal monkey ZN (Fig. 8A) exceeded accommodative vergence by approximately 20% (1.7°). In small-eso monkey CT (Fig. 8B) , the inverse was true: accommodative vergence exceeded disparity vergence by approximately 33%, or 2.5°. To facilitate comparison, the starting point of the monocular response (6.1° convergences) in Figure 8B has been rescaled to the starting point of the binocular response (1.9°). In large-eso monkey TM (Fig. 8C) , weak accommodative vergence exceeded very weak disparity vergence by approximately 0.5° at a latency of approximately 400 ms.
The plots in Figure 9 show convergence velocity as a function of vergence position rather than time (i.e., phase plane plots). These profiles reinforce the point that disparity vergencethroughout the course of the responsewas substantially more robust than accommodative vergence in the normal monkey, whereas in the strabismic animals the two types of vergence were equivalent and, in the case of disparity, much weaker than normal. Taken together, the data of Figures 7 8 9 imply that convergence in the esotropic monkeys was driven largely by accommodative cues, with little input from binocular disparity.
The convergence behavior of small-eso monkey CT, however, revealed some sensitivity to binocular disparity. Disparity cues appear to have provided weak negative feedback to CTs fusional vergence system. The negative feedback was evident as a smaller angle of esotropia under conditions of binocular viewing (compare Figs. 2A and 6B ) and a smaller amplitude of convergence to the near target when viewing binocularly versus monocularly (Fig. 8B) .
| Discussion |
|---|
|
|
|---|
Similarity between Strabismic Monkeys and Humans
Kenyon et al.21 and Ciuffreda and Kenyon 23 provided the first comprehensive description of abnormalities of vergence eye movements in strabismic humans using an infrared-reflection recording technique. The stimuli were physical far and near targets placed in the subjects midline so as to evoke symmetric vergence movements of each eye to target disparities of approximately 4° to 6°. Normal humans responded predominantly with symmetric vergence. The strabismic patients (constant or intermittent heterotropia, with or without amblyopia) responded predominantly with asymmetric vergence accompanied by a disjunctive saccade. The asymmetry of vergence amplitude between the two eyes in their normal subjects was 10%, compared with an average asymmetry of 88% in the strabismic subjects. The prevalence of saccadic vergence in the normal human was less than 10%, compared with a prevalence of 85% in the strabismic patients. Both studies also compared vergence behavior in normal and strabismic subjects under conditions of binocular versus monocular viewing. The vergence behavior of the patients with strabismus did not change, whereas the vergence of normal subjects became remarkably strabismus-like when they viewed monocularly, typified by a four- to fivefold increase in the prevalence of asymmetric-saccadic vergence. The authors concluded from these findings that vergence in humans with strabismus when viewing binocularly was a monocular, accommodative vergence response driven chiefly by visual inputs to the dominant eye.21 23
Our results in strabismic macaque are compatible with the findings in humans and the conclusions of Kenyon et al.21 and Cuiffreda and Kenyon.23 When viewing binocularly, the normal monkeys in the present report made remarkably symmetric, smooth vergence movements, with a prevalence of accompanying saccades on the order of approximately 20%. In contrast, the prevalence of saccadic vergence in the two strabismic monkeys exceeded 80%, and the prevalence of asymmetric vergence approached 100%, whether viewing binocularly or monocularly. When the normal monkeys were required to view monocularly, their vergence behavior became remarkably strabismus-like, dominated by asymmetric, saccadic convergence responses.
Symmetric Convergence in Normal Primate
Most previous studies of vergence in monkeys have used haploscopic viewing to manipulate accommodative blur and binocular disparity independently,3 40 41 or have aligned the targets along the visual axis of one eye to evoke asymmetrical accommodative vergence.3 42 Maxwell and King33 used a stimulus setup similar to that which we used, placing physical (LED) far and near targets in the midline to evoke natural, symmetrical accommodative-disparity vergence. The average vergence latencies and velocities recorded in our control monkeys are comparable to those reported in normal macaque by Maxwell and King,33 Cumming and Judge,3 and Mays et al.41 The latencies for normal monkeys in our study and in previous studies are also comparable to those reported for normal adult humansthat is, approximately 160 to 200 ms.1 43 44 The convergence velocities in normal monkeys, including ours, are, however, higher on average than those reported in human. Erkelens et al.44 measured peak vergence speeds of approximately 4 deg/sec per degree of convergence for symmetric vergence trials in humans,44 compared with approximately 13 to 25 deg/sec per degree of convergence in normal monkeys (pooling our data with that of Maxwell and King33 ). It is possible that the higher velocities in our control monkeys occurred in part because we used only one distance for the near target, which may have enhanced performance by allowing the animals to predict accurately the near target distance and preprogram execution of a stereotyped, convergence response.
Cumming and Judge3 compared vergence velocities in normal monkeys when viewing binocularly versus monocularly and found that disparity was a much more powerful stimulus to vergence than accommodative blur.3 Convergence velocities when the monkeys viewed binocularly were on average three times greater than those achieved when they viewed monocularly. Our results (Fig. 9) in normal monkeys ZN and RH were similar, with binocular viewing evoking convergence velocities 2.5 to 3.0 times greater than monocular viewing.
Vergence System Noise in Strabismic Monkey
Several features of abnormal vergence in the esotropic monkeys can be interpreted as excess noise in the CNS pathways that drive vergence. The most fundamental of these features is variability in position of the nonpreferred eye (and the angle of esotropia) from trial to trial under conditions of binocular viewing (see Fig. 2 ). This variability was labeled "scatter" by Quick et al.,19 who used still photographs (i.e., a modified Hirshberg technique) to measure eye alignment in strabismic macaques at different horizontal, vertical, and near-far gaze positions. They noted scatter of eye position in the nonfixating eye only, which was on average two times greater than that measured in the fixating eye. Quick et al. ascribed the scatter to a noise generator at an as yet unspecified location in the vergence neural pathways. The precision afforded by scleral search coil recordings in the present report reveal with greater clarity not only the magnitude of scatter in the nonfixating eye of strabismic macaque, but also scatter in the fixating eye. On average, our strabismic monkeys displayed scatter in the fixating eye that was 2 times greater, and in the nonfixating eye 10 times greater than that observed in the control animals. Fixation scatter of this magnitude has also been documented in earlier reports from our laboratory of other esotropic monkeys recorded using binocular search coils.20 30
The notion of abnormal vergence system noise is supported by the finding of both pulsatile and sustained vergence responses in small-eso monkey CT (Fig. 2) . The unpredictable profiles of the pulsatile responses, which varied widely in latency and amplitude, coupled with the fact that they appeared mainly during binocular viewing, imply that the monkey retained a weak capacity for detection of binocular disparity. Residual disparity sensitivity, though usually subthreshold, could occasionally trigger but not sustain convergence. Weak disparity sensitivity also explains the finding of a smaller angle of esotropia when the animal viewed binocularly. Weak disparity sensitivity provided negative feedback to the vergence system, reducing the angle of strabismus.
The sustained convergence responses in monkey CT conformed to the pattern of accommodative vergence responses in the two control animals. However, even the sustained responses of the strabismic monkey indicate processing contaminated by temporalspatial noise, in that the variance of the sustained responses (in latency and amplitude) was at least five times greater than that measured in either normal monkey.
Small-Angle Esotropia in Humans and Monkeys
Small-eso monkey CT displayed vergence behaviors remarkably similar to those of patients who have small-angle esotropia (microstrabismus). The humans, like monkey CT, usually have larger angles of strabismus when one eye is covered, show a normal stimulus AC/A ratio, and demonstrate a residual capacity to drive vergence using binocular disparity cues (clinically termed intact fusional vergence amplitudes).10 45 Harweth et al.46 used psychophysical methods rather than vergence eye movement recordings to reveal subnormal disparity sensitivity in microstrabismic macaques. The microstrabismus was inferred from the fact that the animals initially had large angles of esotropia produced in infancy by eye muscle surgery. Within 1 year of the procedure, the animals spontaneously recovered (by inspection) eye alignment and showed varying degrees of stereopsis as well as psychophysically measured fixation disparities.
Visual Cortex and Vergence Maldevelopment
The esotropic monkeys were able to generate accommodative vergence and normal saccadic eye movements, yet displayed striking maldevelopments of binocular-disparity induced vergence. These results imply that the neural mechanism of the disparity vergence deficit lies not in the extraocular muscles, motor nuclei, or convergence-related neurons of the midbrain, but rather in the visual cortical areas that process disparity early in the vergence sensorimotor pathway. Disparity-selective neurons implicated in the control of vergence have been found in many cortical visual areas in monkey and fall generally into near and far subtypes, sensitive to crossed and uncrossed disparities, respectively, that could drive convergence and divergence.47 48 49 50 51 Masson et al.52 have shown that patterns containing binocular disparity act as a powerful stimulus to vergence in both humans and monkeys, even if the patterns cannot evoke a percept of binocular fusion because they are composed of anticorrelated dots. Taken together, these findings imply that vergence is driven in part by disparity-sensitive neurons at the earliest (i.e., prestereoscopic) stage of binocular processingvisual area V1. Esotropic monkeys have a paucity of V1 horizontal connections joining ocular dominance columns of opposite ocularity, both in lamina 2/3 and in lamina 4B.18 53 54 The output from lamina 4B provides a major projection to extrastriate areas MT/MST, implicated in the perception of stereopsis and the control of vergence.51 55 These binocular connections would be important for processing of binocular disparity, and monkeys with infantile strabismus have been shown to lack normal disparity sensitivity.15 46 56 The deficit of binocular V1 connections may also account for the abnormal disparityvergence behavior we have described.
| Footnotes |
|---|
Submitted for publication July 10, 2002; revised January 16, 2003; accepted February 17, 2003.
Disclosure: L. Tychsen, None; C. Scott, None
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: Lawrence Tychsen, St. Louis Childrens Hospital (Room 2s89) at Washington University School of Medicine, One Childrens Place, St. Louis, MO 63110; tychsen{at}vision.wustl.edu.
| References |
|---|
|
|
|---|
This article has been cited by other articles:
![]() |
M. Richards, A. Wong, P. Foeller, D. Bradley, and L. Tychsen Duration of Binocular Decorrelation Predicts the Severity of Latent (Fusion Maldevelopment) Nystagmus in Strabismic Macaque Monkeys Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci., May 1, 2008; 49(5): 1872 - 1878. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
R. G. Bosworth and E. E. Birch Direction-of-Motion Detection and Motion VEP Asymmetries in Normal Children and Children with Infantile Esotropia Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci., December 1, 2007; 48(12): 5523 - 5531. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
J. R. Economides, D. L. Adams, C. M. Jocson, and J. C. Horton Ocular Motor Behavior in Macaques With Surgical Exotropia J Neurophysiol, December 1, 2007; 98(6): 3411 - 3422. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
||||
![]() |
A. Narasimhan, L. Tychsen, V. Poukens, and J. L. |