Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108502
Jeff Henderson, Jeffrey O’Callaghan, Matthew Campbell
{"title":"Gene therapy for glaucoma: Targeting key mechanisms","authors":"Jeff Henderson, Jeffrey O’Callaghan, Matthew Campbell","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108502","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108502","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Glaucoma is a group of optic neuropathies characterised by progressive retinal ganglion cell (RGC) degeneration and is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Current treatments for glaucoma focus on reducing intraocular pressure (IOP) with topical medications. However, many patients do not achieve sufficient IOP reductions with such treatments. Patient compliance to dosing schedules also poses a significant challenge, further limiting their effectiveness. While surgical options exist for resistant cases, these are invasive and carry risks of complications. Thus, there is a critical need for better strategies to prevent irreversible vision loss in glaucoma. Gene therapy holds significant promise in this regard, offering potential long-term solutions by targeting the disease’s underlying causes at a molecular level. Gene therapy strategies for glaucoma primarily target the two key hallmarks of the disease: elevated IOP and RGC death. This review explores key mechanisms underlying these hallmarks and discusses the current state of gene therapies targeting them. In terms of IOP reduction, this review covers strategies aimed at enhancing extracellular matrix turnover in the conventional outflow pathway, targeting fibrosis, regulating aqueous humor production, and targeting myocilin for gene-specific therapy. Neuroprotective strategies explored include targeting neurotrophic factors and their receptors, reducing oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, and preventing Wallerian degeneration. This review also briefly highlights key research priorities for advancing gene therapies for glaucoma through the clinical pipeline, such as refining delivery vectors and improving transgene regulation. Addressing these priorities will be essential for translating advancements from preclinical models into effective clinical therapies for glaucoma.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"225 ","pages":"Article 108502"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142446872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-10-02DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108490
Kristina Zeljic, Joshua A. Solomon, Michael J. Morgan
{"title":"Individual differences in direction-selective motion adaptation revealed by change-detection performance","authors":"Kristina Zeljic, Joshua A. Solomon, Michael J. Morgan","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108490","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108490","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The motion aftereffect (MAE) and motion adaptation in general are usually considered to be universal phenomena. However, in a preliminary study using a bias-free measure of the MAE we found some individuals who showed at best a weak effect of adaptation. These same individuals also performed poorly in a “change detection“ test of motion adaptation based on visual search, leading to the conjecture that there is a bimodality in the population with respect to motion adaptation. The present study tested this possibility by screening 102 participants on two versions of the change-detection task while also considering potential confounding factors including eye movements, practice-based improvements, and deficits in visual search ability. The 5 strongest and the 5 weakest change detectors were selected for further testing of motion detection and contrast detection after adaptation. Data showed an inverse association between change-detection ability and performance in the motion-detection task. We extend previous findings by also showing <em>i</em>) the weakest change detectors exhibit less direction selectivity in their contrast thresholds after adapting to drifting gratings and <em>ii</em>) the ability to detect change in motion direction correlates with the ability to detect change in spatial orientation. Group differences between the strongest and weakest change detectors cannot be attributed to a lack of practice, nor can they be explained by poor fixation ability. Our results suggest genuine individual differences in the degree to which adaptation is specific to stimulus orientation and direction of motion.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"225 ","pages":"Article 108490"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142373071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-30DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108492
Yi Gao , Kamilla N. Miller , Michael A. Webster , Michael A. Crognale , Fang Jiang
{"title":"Time course and neural locus of the Flashed Face Distortion Effect","authors":"Yi Gao , Kamilla N. Miller , Michael A. Webster , Michael A. Crognale , Fang Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108492","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108492","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Viewing a rapid sequence of face images shown in the periphery can lead to large caricature-like distortions in the perceived images, a phenomenon known as the Flashed Face Distortion Effect (FFDE). The mechanisms underlying FFDE are poorly understood. Here we examined the timing and sites of the adaptation processes giving rise to the FFDE. To investigate the effects of presentation rate, we maintained consistent trial lengths while assessing how variations in the temporal frequencies of face presentation influenced the magnitude of face distortion and the averaging of facial expressions. Over a wide range of temporal frequencies (1.2–60 Hz) tested, we observed a decrease in FFDE strength as the presentation rate increased. To probe the neural sites of FFDE, we varied whether successive faces were presented to the same or different eyes using a dichoptic display. Distortion effects were comparable for monocular, binocular, and interocular conditions, yet much larger than a control condition where faces were presented with a temporal interval between successive images, suggesting a cortical locus for FFDE.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108492"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142354997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108491
Injae Hong , Grace Yan , Jeremy M. Wolfe
{"title":"No matter what you do, travel is travel in visual foraging","authors":"Injae Hong , Grace Yan , Jeremy M. Wolfe","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108491","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108491","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In visual foraging, foragers collect multiple items from a series of visual displays (or “patches”). When the goal is to maximize the total or the rate of collection of target items, foragers must decide when to leave a depleted patch given that “traveling” from one patch to another incurs a temporal cost. In three experiments, we investigated whether the interposition of a secondary task during travel between patches in visual foraging altered patch-leaving behavior. Over the course of 10- or 30-minute experiments, participants foraged in simulated “berry patches” and traveled to the next patch at will. While they traveled, they either actively performed a secondary task or simply observed passing visual stimuli. Travel time was varied across conditions. The addition of a secondary task, regardless of its relevance to visual foraging, to traveling, or to both, did not impact patch-leaving times in the primary visual foraging task. In Experiment 1 and more weakly in Experiment 2, the patch-leaving decision was based on how long the travel took as predicted by the Marginal Value Theorem (MVT). In Experiment 3, however, patch-leaving did not depend on travel time. Participants ‘overharvested’ in a manner that suggests that they may have adopted rules different from those of MVT. Across all three experiments, patch-leaving did not depend on the nature of the travel.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108491"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142326683","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-20DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108488
Marzouk Yassin, Maria Lev, Uri Polat
{"title":"Dynamics of the perceptive field size in human adults","authors":"Marzouk Yassin, Maria Lev, Uri Polat","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The receptive field (RF) is the fundamental processing unit of human vision; both masking and crowding depend on its size. The RF has a psychophysical corresponding term, the perceptive field (PF); whereas the RF is measured physiologically, the PF is measured psychophysically (a perceptual response). We investigated how spatial (lateral interactions), temporal (the stimulus presentation time), and the procedure affect the PF size for both monocular and binocular viewing. The stimuli consisted of a central vertically oriented Gabor target and high-contrast Gabor flankers positioned in two configurations (orthogonal or collinear) with target-flanker separations of either 2 or 3 wavelengths (λ). We used two main methods to control the monocular and binocular vision: mono-optic glasses vs. stereo glasses. The presentation order was either mixed or non-mixed for the presentation time and the eye condition. We estimated the PF size for both monocular and binocular viewing at 4 different presentation times (40, 80,120, and 200 ms) with different orders of presentation in each experiment (mono-optic glasses vs. stereo glasses, utilizing the lateral masking paradigm). In each experiment we explored one variable: how changing one parameter would affect the PF size in both monocular and binocular viewing (the temporal duration, the testing order of conditions, and the spatial distance) while keeping the others constant. We found that both the monocular and binocular PF size were dynamic and were significantly affected by the presentation order, leading to reduced lateral suppression under the collinear 2λ condition. Hence, both the monocular and binocular PF size depended on the sequence of the stimulus presentation time and the testing order of the conditions. Furthermore, we found that the binocular PF size was significantly larger than the monocular PF size.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108488"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142271168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108487
Oleg Yarishkin , Monika Lakk , Christopher N. Rudzitis , Jordan E. Searle , Denisa Kirdajova , David Križaj
{"title":"Resting trabecular meshwork cells experience constitutive cation influx","authors":"Oleg Yarishkin , Monika Lakk , Christopher N. Rudzitis , Jordan E. Searle , Denisa Kirdajova , David Križaj","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108487","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108487","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A quintessential sentinel of cell health, the membrane potential in nonexcitable cells integrates biochemical and biomechanical inputs, determines the driving force for ionic currents activated by input signals and plays critical functions in cellular differentiation, signaling, and pathology. The identity and properties of ion channels that subserve the resting potential in trabecular meshwork (TM) cells is poorly understood, which impairs our understanding of intraocular pressure regulation in healthy and diseased eyes. Here, we identified a powerful cationic conductance that subserves the TM resting potential. It disappears following Na<sup>+</sup> removal or substitution with choline or NMDG<sup>+</sup>, is insensitive to TTX, verapamil, phenamil methanesulfonate, amiloride and GsMTx4, is substituted by Li<sup>+</sup> and Cs<sup>+</sup>, and inhibited by Gd<sup>3+</sup> and Ruthenium Red. Constitutive cation influx is thus not mediated by voltage-operated Na<sup>+</sup>, Ca<sup>2+</sup>, epithelial Na<sup>+</sup> (ENaC) channels, Piezo channels or Na<sup>+</sup>/H<sup>+</sup> exchange but may involve TRP-like channels. Transcriptional analysis detected expression of many TRP genes, with the transcriptome pool dominated by TRPC1 followed by expression of TRPV1, TRPC3, TRPV4 and TRPC5. Pyr3 and Pico1,4,5 did not affect the standing current whereas SKF96365 promoted rather than suppressed, Na<sup>+</sup> influx. SEA-0400 induced a modest hyperpolarization, indicating residual contribution from Na<sup>+</sup>/Ca<sup>2+</sup> exchange. The resting membrane potential in human TM cells is thus maintained by a constitutive monovalent cation leak current with properties not unlike those of TRP channels. This conductance is likely to influence conventional outflow by setting the homeostatic steady-state and by regulating the magnitude of pressure-induced currents in normotensive and hypertensive eyes.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108487"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142243236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-18DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108486
Bhagya Lakshmi Marella , Miriam L. Conway , Pravin K. Vaddavalli , Catherine M. Suttle , Shrikant R. Bharadwaj
{"title":"Optical phase nullification partially restores visual and stereo acuity lost to simulated blur from higher-order wavefront aberrations of keratoconic eyes","authors":"Bhagya Lakshmi Marella , Miriam L. Conway , Pravin K. Vaddavalli , Catherine M. Suttle , Shrikant R. Bharadwaj","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108486","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108486","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Contrast demodulation and phase distortions are exaggerated in retinal images blurred by the higher-order wavefront aberrations of keratoconic eyes. While the performance loss from the former parameter is well understood, little is known about the impact of the latter on visual functions in this disease condition. The present study investigated the impact of phase distortions on the monocular logMAR visual acuity, letter discriminability and random-dot stereoacuity of seventeen visually healthy adults (ten for visual acuity and letter discriminability; ten for stereoacuity and three common to both experiments) using images that were computationally blurred by four different higher-order wavefront aberration profiles of keratoconic eyes that showed significant distortions in the phase spectrum. Participants viewed these images through 2 mm artificial pupils to negate their native ocular wavefront aberrations. The results showed progressive losses in visual acuity and stereoacuity with increasing blur, a third of which could be recovered following phase nullification. Letter discriminability also improved following phase nullification, more so for smaller than larger optotypes. Stereoacuity loss and, consequently, its recovery following phase nullification was more prominent for profiles simulating unilateral asymmetric keratoconus than for profiles simulating bilateral symmetric keratoconus. These results agree with previous reports obtained from blur induced with lower-order aberrations and indicate that a similar trend may be observed for more complex patterns of blur like keratoconus. Overall, both contrast demodulation and misalignment of the local features of the blurred image may contribute to losses of spatial and depth vision in keratoconus. Phase nullification may partially mitigate these losses, thereby allowing the processing of finer spatial details and veridical disparity estimations for improved depth perception.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108486"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142243235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-12DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108485
Lea Ingrassia , Barbara Swiatczak , Frank Schaeffel
{"title":"Two different visual stimuli that cause axial eye shortening have no additive effect","authors":"Lea Ingrassia , Barbara Swiatczak , Frank Schaeffel","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108485","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108485","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous studies identified two visual stimuli that can shorten the human eye by thickening the choroid after short-term visual stimulation, potentially inhibiting myopia: (1) watching digitally filtered movies where the red plane has full spatial resolution while green and blue are low-pass filtered according to the human longitudinal chromatic aberration (LCA) function (the “red in focus” filter), and (2) reading text with inverted contrast. This study aimed to determine whether combining these two stimuli would have an additive effect on axial length. Twenty-two emmetropic subjects were recruited to read text (standard and inverted contrast) for 30 min from a large screen, 2 m away, either unfiltered or filtered with the “red in focus” filter. Axial length was measured before and after each reading episode using low-coherence interferometry (Lenstar LS 900, Haag Streit). Reading text with conventional contrast polarity (dark letters on a bright background) resulted in no significant axial length change. Adding the “red in focus” filter did not alter the outcome. Consistent with previous findings, reading inverted contrast text made emmetropic eyes shorter. Surprisingly, when the text was combined with the “red in focus” filter, eyes became longer rather than shorter. A possible explanation for this contradictory result is that, for the text stimulus, the “red in focus” filter removes spatial information in the blue channel needed by the retina to use LCA analysis to thicken the choroid.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108485"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698924001299/pdfft?md5=25f92cb2513b50b87cd528396e732a2e&pid=1-s2.0-S0042698924001299-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142167480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vision ResearchPub Date : 2024-09-10DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2024.108484
Olga Leticevscaia , Talia Brandman , Marius V. Peelen
{"title":"Scene context and attention independently facilitate MEG decoding of object category","authors":"Olga Leticevscaia , Talia Brandman , Marius V. Peelen","doi":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108484","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.visres.2024.108484","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Many of the objects we encounter in our everyday environments would be hard to recognize without any expectations about these objects. For example, a distant silhouette may be perceived as a car because we expect objects of that size, positioned on a road, to be cars. Reflecting the influence of such expectations on visual processing, neuroimaging studies have shown that when objects are poorly visible, expectations derived from scene context facilitate the representations of these objects in visual cortex from around 300 ms after scene onset. The current magnetoencephalography (MEG) study tested whether this facilitation occurs independently of attention and task relevance. Participants viewed degraded objects alone or within scene context while they either attended the scenes (attended condition) or the fixation cross (unattended condition), also temporally directing attention away from the scenes. Results showed that at 300 ms after stimulus onset, multivariate classifiers trained to distinguish clearly visible animate vs inanimate objects generalized to distinguish degraded objects in scenes better than degraded objects alone, despite the added clutter of the scene background. Attention also modulated object representations at this latency, with better category decoding in the attended than the unattended condition. The modulatory effects of context and attention were independent of each other. Finally, data from the current study and a previous study were combined (N = 51) to provide a more detailed temporal characterization of contextual facilitation. These results extend previous work by showing that facilitatory scene-object interactions are independent of the specific task performed on the visual input.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":23670,"journal":{"name":"Vision Research","volume":"224 ","pages":"Article 108484"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698924001287/pdfft?md5=71069484f081043895f18f372fa0d24a&pid=1-s2.0-S0042698924001287-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142162526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}