Postnatal Development of Function in the Mammalian Visual System

Critical Periods in Vision Revisited

For four decades, investigations of the biological basis of critical periods in the developing mammalian visual cortex were dominated by study of the consequences of altered early visual experience in cats and nonhuman primates. The neural deficits thus revealed also provided insight into the origin and neural basis of human amblyopia that in turn motivated additional studies of humans with abnormal early visual input. Recent human studies point to deficits arising from alterations in all visual cortical areas and even in nonvisual cortical regions. As the new human data accumulated in parallel with a near-complete shift toward the use of rodent animal models for the study of neural mechanisms, it is now essential to review the human data and the earlier animal data obtained from cats and monkeys to infer general conclusions and to optimize future choice of the most appropriate animal model. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Vision Science, Volume 8 is September 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

The critical period for darkness-induced recovery of the vision of the amblyopic eye following early monocular deprivation

Exposure of kittens to complete darkness for 10 days has been shown (Duffy & Mitchell, 2013) to reverse the loss of visual acuity that follows a prior period of monocular deprivation (MD). In that study, recovery of acuity in the previously deprived eye was fast despite the fact that darkness was imposed 2 months after the period of MD when kittens were 3 months old. In a later study (Holman, Duffy, & Mitchell, 2018), it was demonstrated that the same period of darkness was ineffective when it was imposed on cats about 1 year old, suggesting that dark exposure may only promote recovery when applied within an early critical period. To determine the profile of this critical period, the identical period of darkness (10 days) was imposed on kittens at various ages that had all received the same 7-day period of MD from postnatal day 30 (P30). Recovery of the acuity of the deprived eye as measured by use of a jumping stand was complete when darkness was imposed prior to P186 days, but thereafter, darkness induced progressively smaller acuity improvements and was ineffective in kittens when it began at or beyond P191 days of age. These data indicate a critical period for darkness-induced recovery with an abrupt end over a 5-day period.

Constriction of the visual field of children after early visual deprivation

PURPOSE

We measured the extent of the monocular visual fields of children deprived of normal visual experience and examined the influence of the timing and duration of deprivation, of whether deprivation was monocular or binocular, of having patched the fellow eye, and of optical factors.

METHODS

The Goldmann perimeter and a 6.4' stimulus of either 31.8 cd/m2 (target 12e) or of 318 cd/m2 (target 14e) were used to test 44 children treated for a dense and central cataract in one (n = 25) or both (n = 31) eyes that developed before 6 years of age. Then, the influence of optical factors was assessed in two adults treated for a late-onset, unilateral cataract and in two children treated for unilateral congenital cataract.

RESULTS

Compared with age norms or the normal fellow eye, all children treated for cataract showed a restricted field, especially temporally, even when deprivation began as late as 6 years of age and lasted less than 6 months. The restrictions were larger than those shown by the adults who developed cataracts. The restrictions were larger after longer deprivation and monocular deprivation than after binocular deprivation. However, children who regularly patched the fellow nondeprived eye and, therefore, experienced less interocular competition, exhibited smaller restrictions temporally. Neither visual acuity nor optical factors could account for all of the restrictions in the deprived children.

CONCLUSIONS

The development of the visual field is vulnerable to the effects of deprivation, especially to unilateral deprivation and to long deprivation. The losses likely reflect alterations in the visual pathways subserving peripheral vision.

Some effects of early monocular deprivation in the Mongolian gerbil

The effects of short- and long-term early monocular deprivation were investigated in 4 Mongolian gerbils using interocular differences in grating acuity as a measure of deprivation-induced impairment. All gerbils showed acuity deficits in the initially deprived eye, ranging in magnitude from 0.24-1.40 octaves. One month of monocular deprivation from eye opening proved sufficient to induce a permanent acuity impairment.