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Recent publications by SoVS staff include:

Altered visual population receptive fields in human albinism

Cortex

Ivan Alvarez, Rebecca Smittenaar, Sian E. Handley, Alki Liasis, Martin I. Sereno, D. Samuel Schwarzkopf, Chris A. Clark

Sam Schwarzkopf and Ivan Alvarez from the University of California, Berkeley, and their collaborators published a brain imaging study mapping the visual brain areas of people with albinism. In typical brains, different parts of the retina are wired up to either the left or the right side of the brain. Albinos on the other hand have an unusual neuroanatomy where there is more crossover – the left eye predominantly connects to the right side of the brain and vice versa. This results in very unusual overlapping representations of the visual field in the brains of people with albinism.

Click here to read the paper.

 

Topographic Signatures of Global Object Perception in Human Visual Cortexa

NeuroImage

Susan Stoll, Nonie J. Finlayson, D. Samuel Schwarzkopf

Susanne Stoll and Sam Schwarzkopf published a study investigating how the visual brain interprets moving images as coherent objects. They presented people with an ambiguous movie while they measured their brain activity with an MRI scanner. These movies could either be interpreted as several bars moving vertically, or as a diamond moving horizontally behind occluders. When participants perceived the diamond – meaning they perceptually grouped the bars into a coherent whole – brain activity in the early visual cortex decreased. Importantly, further experiments showed that rather than spreading all over visual cortex, this decrease was broadly localised to where the image moved. This finding speaks against previous theories of why such decreases in brain activity arise.

Click here to read the paper.

Dry anophthalmic socket syndrome – Standardized clinical evaluation of symptoms and signs.

The Ocular Surface

Alexander C. Rokohl, Marc Trester, Yongwei Guo, Werner Adler, Viktoria K. Jaeger, Niklas Loreck, Joel M. Mor, Keith R. Pine, Ludwig M. Heindl

This paper is the result of a collaboration established by Keith Pine several years ago with ocular prosthetists at the University of Cologne. The research takes Keith’s work with prostheses made using PMMA materials and applies it to prostheses made with cryolite glass.

Click here to read the paper.

Multi-parametric MRI of the physiology and optics of the in-vivo mouse lens.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Eric R. Muir, Xingzhen Pan, Paul J. Donaldson, Ehsan Vaghefi, Zhao Jiang, Caterina Sellitto, Thomas W. White

This work is a collaborative work between Prof Paul Donaldson’s lab and Prof Thomas White’s Lab at Stonybrook university, NY, USA, and Wilson was a visiting student there for two months. This work described the application of 7T pre-clinical MRI (animal) to investigate the physiology and optics of the mouse lens.

Click here to read the paper.

Equity was rarely considered in Cochrane Eyes and Vision systematic reviews and primary studies on cataract

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

Jennifer Evans, Nyawira Mwangi, Helen Burn, Jacqueline Ramke

This study aimed to assess the extent to which Cochrane Eyes and Vision systematic reviews on cataract consider equity. We found that equity is rarely considered in studies of interventions for cataract, and this is reflected in the associated Cochrane reviews.

Click here to read the paper.

Interventions to promote access to eye care for non-Indigenous, non-dominant ethnic groups in high-income countries: a scoping review protocol

BMJ Open

Lisa Hamm, Joanna Black, Helen Burn, Corina Grey, Matire Harwood, Roshini Peiris-John, Iris Gordon, Matthew J Burton, Jennifer R Evans, Jacqueline Ramke

In this protocol we outline a scoping review to identify, describe and summarise interventions aimed at improving access to eye care for non-Indigenous, non-dominant ethnic groups residing in high-income countries. The results will inform the upcoming Lancet Global Health Commission on Global Eye Health.

Click here to read the paper.

Association between vision impairment and mortality: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

BMJ Open

Joshua R Ehrlich, Jacqueline Ramke, David Macleod, Bonnielin K Swenor, Helen Burn, Chan Ning Lee, William J Waldock, Justine H Zhang, Iris Gordon, Nathan Congdon, Matthew Burton, Jennifer R Evans.

This protocol outlines a systematic review and meta-analysis that will inform the ongoing Lancet Commission on Global Eye Health. The review aims to answer two questions: 1) What is the extent, strength and quality of the published evidence that VI is associated with the risk of all-cause mortality? and 2) To what degree does VI affect the risk of all-cause mortality, and does this risk vary based on level of visual function?

Click here to read the paper.

The Effect of Simulated Visual Field Loss on Optokinetic Nystagmus

Translational Vision Science & Technology

Soheil M. Doustkouhi, Philip R. K. Turnbull, Steven C. Dakin

In this paper, we describe a first step toward how objective measurement of an involuntary eye movement, known as optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), could provide an objective measure of visual field loss and contrast sensitivity loss, which could both accompany glaucoma. We determined how OKN changes when the extent of the simulated visual field and the contrast of stimulus gradually reduced.

Click here to read the paper.