Optically Induced Anisometropia

描述（由申请人提供）：出生后不久，大多数婴儿出现近屈光不正，然后在整个童年和成年早期保持双眼。然而，由于目前尚不清楚的原因，出现异常屈光不正的人群比例显著增加（目前美国约30%的年轻人有明显的屈光不正）。屈光不正是一个重大的公共卫生问题，因为除了与传统的光学和手术矫正策略相关的高费用和并发症外，屈光不正还可能导致永久性感觉障碍和眼部异常，从而导致失明。我们研究项目的长期目标是更好地了解人类屈光不正的病因。我们提出的研究的具体目的是确定视觉经验如何影响屈光发育，并描述调节眼睛生长的视觉依赖机制的操作特性。由于许多所需的实验不能在人类身上进行，但我们的目的是产生可以应用于人类发展的知识，因此这些实验将使用恒河猴进行。控制饲养策略和光学和超声测量技术将用于确定：1)中央视网膜和外周视网膜对眼睛生长的趋近化和视觉依赖变化的相对贡献。2)外周屈光不正对眼球正化的影响；3)调节眼睛生长的视依赖机制的空间整合特征。这些实验的重点是关于视觉经验的作用的基本问题，这些问题在以前的人类研究中很大程度上被忽视了。总的来说，拟议的研究是确定视觉经验如何以及在多大程度上导致人类常见屈光不正的重要一步。这些研究结果将有可能为人类屈光不正的新治疗和管理策略提供基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Soon after birth, most infants develop near emmetropic refractive errors that are then maintained in both eyes throughout childhood and into early adult life. However, for reasons not currently understood, a significant and possibly increasing proportion of the population develop abnormal refractive errors (currently about 30% of young adults in the USA have significant refractive errors). Refractive errors are a significant public health concern because in addition to the high costs and the complications associated with traditional optical and surgical correction strategies, refractive errors can lead to permanent sensory disorders and ocular abnormalities causing blindness. The long-term goal of our research program is to provide a better understanding of the etiology of human refractive errors. The specific aims of our proposed research are to determine how visual experience affects refractive development and to characterize the operational properties of the vision-dependent mechanisms that regulate eye growth. Since many of the required experiments can not be conducted in humans, but our purpose is to generate knowledge that can be applied to human development, these experiments will be conducted using rhesus monkeys. Controlled rearing strategies and optical and ultrasonographic measurement techniques will be used to determine: 1) the relative contributions of the central and peripheral retina to emmetropization and vision-dependent changes in eye growth. 2) the impact of peripheral refractive errors on emmetropization, and 3) the spatial integration characteristics of the vision-dependent mechanisms that regulate eye growth. These experiments focus on fundamental issues concerning the role of visual experience that have largely been ignored in previous studies in humans. Overall the proposed studies are an important step in determining how and to what extent visual experience contributes to the genesis of common human refractive errors. The results of these studies will potentially provide the foundation for new treatment and management strategies for human refractive errors.