Ocular dominance

Systematic errors affecting center-of-gravity (CoG) measurements may occur from coarse sampling of the point-spread-function (PSF) or from signal truncation at the boundaries of the region-of-interest (ROI). For small ROI and PSF widths, these effects are shown to become dominant, but this can be mitigated by introducing novel unbiased estimators that are largely free of systematic error and perform particularly well for low photon numbers. Analytical expressions for the estimator variances, comprising contributions from photon shot noise, random pixel noise, and residual systematic error, are derived and verified by Monte Carlo simulations...

We studied the attributes of cytochrome c oxidase (CytOx)-rich blobs and ocular dominance columns (OD) in human V1 associated with monocular retinal lesions. Interblob distance, blob cross-sectional area, OD width, and OD arrangement pattern were analyzed in CytOx-reacted tangential sections of flat-mounted V1 preparations. Monocular deprivation induces differential expression of CytOx in the corresponding ODs in V1. We were thereby able to identify the V1 regions associated with the lesioned area in the retina, assign which OD was associated with each eye, and assign the corresponding blob in Layer III as deprived or nondeprived of visual input...

New Korean guidelines for the diagnosis and management of dry eye disease were developed based on literature reviews by the Korean Dry Eye Guideline Establishment Committee, a previous dry eye guideline by Korean Corneal Disease Study Group, a survey of Korean Dry Eye Society (KDES) members, and KDES consensus meetings. The new definition of dry eye was also proposed by KDES regular members. The new definition by the regular members of the KDES is as follows: "Dry eye is a disease of the ocular surface characterized by tear film abnormalities and ocular symptoms"...

The principal eyes of jumping spiders (Salticidae) integrate a dual-lens system, a tiered retinal matrix with multiple photoreceptor classes and muscular control of retinal movements to form high resolution images, extract color information, and dynamically evaluate visual scenes. While much work has been done to characterize these more complex principal anterior eyes, little work has investigated the three other pairs of simpler secondary eyes: the anterior lateral eye pair and two posterior (lateral and median) pairs of eyes...

PURPOSE: To review all reported disease-causing mutations in BEST1, perform genotype-phenotype correlation, and estimate disease prevalence in the Israeli population. METHODS: Medical records of patients diagnosed with Best disease and allied diseases from nine Israeli medical centers over the past 20 years were collected, as were clinical data including ocular findings, electrophysiology results, and retina imaging. Mutation detection involved mainly whole exome sequencing and candidate gene analysis...

We employed high-resolution functional MRI (fMRI) to distinguish the impacts of anisometropia and strabismus (the two most frequent causes of amblyopia) on the evoked ocular dominance (OD) response. Sixteen amblyopic participants (8 females), comprising 8 individuals with strabismus, 7 with anisometropia, 1 with deprivational amblyopia, along with 8 individuals with normal visual acuity (1 female), participated in this study for whom, we measured the difference between the response to stimulation of the two eyes, across early visual areas (V1-V4)...

The control of attention was long held to reflect the influence of two competing mechanisms of assigning priority, one goal-directed and the other stimulus-driven. Learning-dependent influences on the control of attention that could not be attributed to either of those two established mechanisms of control gave rise to the concept of selection history and a corresponding third mechanism of attentional control. The trichotomy framework that ensued has come to dominate theories of attentional control over the past decade, replacing the historical dichotomy...

BACKGROUND: Oculoauriculovertebral Spectrum (OAVS) encompasses a wide variety of anomalies on derivatives from the first and second pharyngeal arches including macrostomia, hemifacial microsomia, micrognathia, preauricular tags, ocular and vertebral anomalies. We present the genetic findings of a large three-generation family with multiple members affected with macrostomia, preauricular tags and uni- or bilateral ptosis following an autosomal dominant segregation pattern. METHODS: We generated whole genome sequencing data for the proband, affected parent and unaffected paternal grandparent followed by Sanger sequencing on 23 family members for the top 10 candidate genes: KCND2, PDGFRA, CASP9, NCOA3, WNT10A, SIX1, MTF1, KDR/VEGFR2, LRRK1 , and TRIM2 ...

Gould syndrome is an autosomal dominant syndrome due to a COL4A1 or COL4A2 mutation that is commonly characterised by familial porencephaly, seizures, intracranial haemorrhages, cataracts, nephropathies and more. There have been up to 137 identified patients based on a review of the literature. In this case, we describe a male infant that presents with hemiparesis, developmental delay and gait abnormalities at his well-child check. Referral to neurology and a subsequent MRI demonstrated porencephaly and ocular lens abnormalities...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the ocular microbiome in individuals with dry eye disease and to identify features of their ocular microbiome of possible health and diagnostic significance. METHODS: Conjunctival samples were collected from both eyes in duplicate from 91 individuals (61 dry eye, 30 healthy) and used for both culture-dependent and culture-independent analyses. Samples were either analysed using next generation sequencing (V3-V4 16S rDNA) or inoculated on a wide range of agar types and grown under a broad range of conditions to maximize recovery...

BACKGROUND: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory condition that impacts not only the musculoskeletal system but also various other systems in the body, including the cutaneous, ocular, respiratory, cardiovascular, and circulatory systems. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of naturally occurring and highly conserved transcripts that primarily function in the regulation of gene expression. They accomplish this by facilitating the degradation of messenger RNA (mRNA) or by repressing mRNA translation...

I have been fortunate to spend portions of my career in each of private practice, industry, and academia. At some times, these occupations have dictated the research direction, whereas, at others, curiosity has been allowed to dominate. This has resulted in multiple avenues of inquiry (some might say, too many), along which I have traveled with a rich and varied cast of collaborators, who have all taught me a great deal. The privilege of being awarded the Charles F. Prentice medal provides me an opportunity to summarize some of these activities...

It has been known for some time that Carbonic Anhydrase (CA, EC 4.2.1.1) plays a complex role in vascular function, and in the regulation of vascular tone. Clinically employed CA inhibitors (CAIs) are used primarily to lower intraocular pressure in glaucoma, and also to affect retinal blood flow and oxygen saturation. CAIs have been shown to dilate vessels and increase blood flow in both the cerebral and ocular vasculature. Similar effects of CAIs on vascular function have been observed in the liver, brain and kidney, while vessels in abdominal muscle and the stomach are unaffected...

Short-term monocular deprivation (MD) shifts sensory eye balance in favour of the previously deprived eye. The effect of MD on eye balance is significant but brief in adult humans. Recently, researchers and clinicians have attempted to implement MD in clinical settings for adults with impaired binocular vision. Although the effect of MD has been studied in detail in single-session protocols, what is not known is whether the effect of MD on eye balance deteriorates after repeated periods of MD (termed 'perceptual deterioration')...

AIM: Dry eye disease (DED) is a prevalent ocular condition that significantly impacts individuals' quality of life and performance. It is charac-terized by the instability of the tear film, which causes ocular surface inflamma-tion and damage that leads to ocular symptoms. However, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of DED and identify associated risk factors among university students in western Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A total of 402 university students participated in this study...

The fibroblast growth factor receptors comprise a family of related but individually distinct tyrosine kinase receptors. Within this family, FGFR2 is a key regulator in many biological processes, e.g., cell proliferation, tumorigenesis, metastasis, and angiogenesis. Heterozygous activating non-mosaic germline variants in FGFR2 have been linked to numerous autosomal dominantly inherited disorders including several craniosynostoses and skeletal dysplasia syndromes. We report on a girl with cutaneous nevi, ocular malformations, macrocephaly, mild developmental delay, and the initial clinical diagnosis of Schimmelpenning-Feuerstein-Mims syndrome, a very rare mosaic neurocutaneous disorder caused by postzygotic missense variants in HRAS, KRAS, and NRAS...

Hereditary optic neuropathies (HONs) such as dominant optic atrophy (DOA) and Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON) are mitochondrial diseases characterized by a degenerative loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and are a cause of blindness worldwide. To date, there are only limited disease-modifying treatments for these disorders. The discovery of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has opened several promising opportunities in the field of HON research and the search for therapeutic approaches...

In this study, we propose a comprehensive mechanical model of ocular bulb vibrations and discuss its implications for acoustic tonometry. The model describes the eye wall as a spherical, pre-stressed elastic shell containing a viscoelastic material and accounts for the interaction between the elastic corneoscleral shell and the viscoelastic vitreous humor. We investigate the natural frequencies of the system and the corresponding vibration modes, expanding the solution in terms of scalar and vector spherical harmonics...

Adapting to particular features of a haptic shape, for example, the slant of a surface, affects how a subsequently touched shape is perceived (aftereffect). Previous studies showed that this adaptation is largely based on our proprioceptive sense of hand posture, yet the influence of vision on haptic shape adaptation has been relatively unexplored. Here, using a slant-adaptation paradigm, we investigated whether visual information affects haptic adaptation and, if so, how. To this end, we varied the available visual cues during the adaptation period...

Current hypotheses on the mechanisms underlying the development and plasticity of the ocular dominance system through competitive interactions between pathways serving the two eyes strongly suggest the involvement of neurotrophins and their high affinity receptors. In the cat, infusion of the tyrosine kinase B ligand (trkB), neurotrophin-4/5 (NT-4/5), abolishes ocular dominance plasticity that follows monocular deprivation (Gillespie et al., 2000), while tyrosine kinase A and C ligands (trkA and trkC) do not have this effect...