Accommodation and Defocus in the Infant Visual System

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The postnatal development of both the optical and neural visual systems is dependent on visual experience. Visual experience can be defined by the information available in the retinal images in the two eyes. The goal of the proposed research is to understand how the visual system controls this visual experience with accommodation and vergence motor responses, in normal development, amblyopia and strabismus. There are four interrelated projects: i) To understand motor performance over extended periods of time, to test hypotheses related to current theories of the effects of integrated experience on activity-dependent processes. ii) To determine the cues used in generating accommodation and vergence motor responses during development, to test hypotheses related to cue redundancy and the development of strabismus and amblyopia. iii) To determine the role of accommodation and vergence in the management of strabismus and test hypotheses about the control of these motor responses after surgery. iv) To understand retinal visual experience during amblyopia therapy and its role in successful treatments.