Abstract
Presentation Description :
Understanding the limits of human vision requires fundamental insights into the contribution of optical and neural factors to neural processing of images formed on the retina. We have found evidence that in eyes with prolonged visual deprivation induced by the abnormally large optical defects such as aberrations, the actual visual performance after full correction is significantly poorer than that predicted from optical theory and that measured in normal eyes. We hypothesize that this vision loss represents an adverse effect of long-term neural adaptation to particular ocular aberrations, which ultimately alters visual processing of images. Our goal is to characterize the mechanisms of long-term neural adaptation in normally-developed visual systems that become optically-altered in adulthood. We use a group of patients with a corneal disease, keratoconus as a model of long-term visual adaptation and advanced vision correction methodology, a binocular adaptive optics vision simulator in order to manipulate optics of the eye.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.