Amblyopia is a major concern in pediatric ophthalmology. Roughly 3% of children develop amblyopia, a developmental disorder of vision. Amblyopia is a deficit in vision that is not due to any obvious pathology but is not correctable by spectacle lenses. It is known to be associated with cataracts, strabismus, and blur, when they occur during childhood. If amblyopia is not detected and corrected during childhood, the deficits become permanent. We study animal models to carefully control the visual histories of the subjects, to be confident of the causality of the amblyopia, and to study the neurobiological correlates of visual behavior directly in the same species. We study the most common types of amblyopia, strabismic and anisometropic, which are believed to have different neural bases. Several prominent theories of the neural basis of amblyopia will be directly investigated. We plan psychophysical and physiological experiments to test the ideas that amblyopia is a consequence of: abnormal development of local and long-range spatial interactions, reduced representation of the affected eye's activity in the brain, disarray of the affected eye's connections in the brain, and reduced visual efficiency (poor signal/noise processing) in central visual mechanisms. Psychophysical investigations focus on two specific areas: the degree of spatial interaction in amblyopia as a function of task type (contrast processing versus spatial precision or crowding), and the nature of reduced efficiency in form and motion processing. We will study the degree to which the visual deficits are first-order (at the level of the primary filters) or second-order (at a later stage of processing after integration and pooling of information from the first stage), and whether the second-order deficiencies are confined to spatial processing (form based) or include temporal processing deficits (motion based) as well. Physiological investigations are designed to directly test the hypotheses for the neural basis of amblyopia listed above. We will examine the possible substrates for abnormal spatial interaction and disarray in V1 neurons, look for correlates of second-order deficits and crowding in V2, and look for the site of reduced efficiency in extrastriate form and motion areas, MT and (presumably) V4. We will also look for evidence that binocularity is a deterministic factor for classes of amblyopia, and begin to investigate treatment strategies for preserving binocularity. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
2R01EY005864-18
Application #
6807600
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-CVP (02))
Program Officer
Oberdorfer, Michael
Project Start
1985-09-30
Project End
2008-08-31
Budget Start
2004-09-01
Budget End
2005-08-31
Support Year
18
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$377,512
Indirect Cost
Name
New York University
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
041968306
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10012
Pham, Amelie; Carrasco, Marisa; Kiorpes, Lynne (2018) Endogenous attention improves perception in amblyopic macaques. J Vis 18:11
Hallum, Luke E; Shooner, Christopher; Kumbhani, Romesh D et al. (2017) Altered Balance of Receptive Field Excitation and Suppression in Visual Cortex of Amblyopic Macaque Monkeys. J Neurosci 37:8216-8226
Shooner, Christopher; Hallum, Luke E; Kumbhani, Romesh D et al. (2017) Asymmetric Dichoptic Masking in Visual Cortex of Amblyopic Macaque Monkeys. J Neurosci 37:8734-8741
Voyles, Angela C; Kiorpes, Lynne (2016) A Window into brain development: hdEEG methods to track visual development in nonhuman primates. Dev Neurobiol 76:1342-1359
Kiorpes, Lynne (2016) The Puzzle of Visual Development: Behavior and Neural Limits. J Neurosci 36:11384-11393
Shooner, Christopher; Hallum, Luke E; Kumbhani, Romesh D et al. (2015) Population representation of visual information in areas V1 and V2 of amblyopic macaques. Vision Res 114:56-67
Kiorpes, Lynne; Mangal, Paul (2015) ""Global"" visual training and extent of transfer in amblyopic macaque monkeys. J Vis 15:14
Kiorpes, Lynne (2015) Visual development in primates: Neural mechanisms and critical periods. Dev Neurobiol 75:1080-90
Li, Da-Peng; Hagan, Maureen A; Kiorpes, Lynne (2013) Linking structure and function: development of lateral spatial interactions in macaque monkeys. Vis Neurosci 30:263-70
Kiorpes, Lynne; Price, Tracy; Hall-Haro, Cynthia et al. (2012) Development of sensitivity to global form and motion in macaque monkeys (Macaca nemestrina). Vision Res 63:34-42

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