Effects of induced aniseikonia on binocular visual acuity.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Binocular visual acuity is an important index of functional performance. Optometrists need to know how binocular visual acuity is affected by aniseikonia, and whether reduced binocular visual acuity is a marker for aniseikonia. BACKGROUND: Aniseikonia, the perception of unequal image sizes between the eyes, can occur spontaneously or can be induced after different types of eye surgery, or trauma. It is known to affect binocular vision, but there are no prior studies about how it affects visual acuity. METHODS: Visual acuity was measured for 10 healthy well-corrected participants aged 18-21 years of age. Aniseikonia of up to 20% was induced in one of two ways: (1) size lenses, which provided minification of field of view in one eye of each participant and (2) polaroid filters, which allowed vectographic viewing of optotypes on a 3D computer monitor. The best corrected acuity was measured on conventional logarithmic progression format vision charts and isolated optotypes, under both induced aniseikonia conditions. RESULTS: Induced aniseikonia caused binocular visual acuity thresholds to increase by small but statistically significant amounts, with the largest deficit being 0.06 logMAR for 20% size differences between the eyes. Binocular visual acuity was worse than monocular visual acuity for aniseikonia of 9% and greater. Acuity measured with the vectographic presentation gave slightly higher thresholds (by 0.01 logMAR) than for those viewed with size lenses. Acuity measured with charts gave slightly higher thresholds (by 0.02 logMAR) than with isolated letters. CONCLUSION: An acuity change of 0.06 logMAR is small and may be missed in a clinical examination. Therefore, visual acuity cannot be used as a marker of aniseikonia in clinical settings. Even with very marked induced aniseikonia, binocular visual acuity remained well within standards for licen*c*sing of drivers.

Regional variations distinguish auditory from visual evoked potentials in healthy 4 week old piglets.

Objective.Evoked potentials (EP), measured using electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings provide an opportunity to monitor cognitive dysfunctions after neurological diseases or traumatic brain injury (TBI). The 4 week old piglet is an established model of paediatric TBI; therefore, healthy piglets were studied to establish feasibility of obtaining responses to auditory and visual stimuli. A secondary aim was to input the EEG data into a piglet computational model to localize the brain sources related to processing. We tested the hypotheses: (1) visual, auditory-standard, and auditory-target stimuli elicit responses, (2) there is an effect of stimulus type, day tested, and electrode region on EPs from EEG, (3) there is an effect of stimulus type, day tested, and brain region on localized sources from a computational model.Approach.Eleven 4 week old female piglets were fitted with a 32-electrode net and presented with a simple white light stimulus and an auditory oddball click train (70 standard; 30 target tones).Main results.N1 andP2 amplitudes were consistently observed for all stimulus types. Significant interaction effects between brain region and stimulus for EP and current density demonstrate that cognitive responses are specific to each modality with auditory localizing to the temporal region and visual to the occipital regions. There was a day effect where larger responses were found on the first day than day 2 and 3 and may be due to the novelty of the stimulus on the first day. Visual stimuli had largerP1 amplitudes and earlier latencies (P1,N1) than auditory which coincides with current density results at 50 ms where larger activations were observed for visual. At 85 ms, auditory had significantly larger current densities coincident with larger and longerN1 amplitudes and latencies than visual.Significance.Auditory and visual processing were successfully and consistently obtained in a porcine model and can be evaluated as a diagnostic assessment for TBI.

Molecular mechanism of species-dependent sweet taste toward artificial sweeteners.

The heterodimer of Tas1R2 and Tas1R3 is a broadly acting sweet taste receptor, which mediates mammalian sweet taste toward natural and artificial sweeteners and sweet-tasting proteins. Perception of sweet taste is a species-selective physiological process. For instance, artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame taste sweet to humans, apes, and Old World monkeys but not to New World monkeys and rodents. Although specific regions determining the activation of the receptors by these sweeteners have been identified, the molecular mechanism of species-dependent sweet taste remains elusive. Using human/squirrel monkey chimeras, mutagenesis, and molecular modeling, we reveal that the different responses of mammalian species toward the artificial sweeteners aspartame and neotame are determined by the steric effect of a combination of a few residues in the ligand binding pocket. Residues S40 and D142 in the human Tas1R2, which correspond to residues T40 and E142 in the squirrel monkey Tas1R2, were found to be the critical residues for the species-dependent difference in sweet taste. In addition, human Tas1R2 residue I67, which corresponds to S67 in squirrel monkey receptor, modulates the higher affinity of neotame than of aspartame. Our studies not only shed light on the molecular mechanism of species-dependent sweet taste toward artificial sweeteners, but also provide guidance for designing novel effective artificial sweet compounds.

Functional characterization of the heterodimeric sweet taste receptor T1R2 and T1R3 from a New World monkey species (squirrel monkey) and its response to sweet-tasting proteins.

The family C G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) T1R2 and T1R3 heterodimer functions as a broadly acting sweet taste receptor. Perception of sweet taste is a species-dependent physiological process. It has been widely reported that New World monkeys and rodents are not able to perceive some of the artificial sweeteners and sweet-tasting proteins that can be perceived by humans, apes, and Old World monkeys. Until now, only the sweet receptors of humans, mice and rats have been functionally characterized. Here we report characterization of the sweet taste receptor (T1R2/T1R3) from a species of New World primate, squirrel monkey. Our results show that the heterodimeric receptor of squirrel monkey does not respond to artificial sweeteners aspartame, neotame, cyclamate, saccharin and sweet-tasting protein monellin, but surprisingly, it does respond to thaumatin at high concentrations (>18 µM). This is the first report demonstrating that species of New World monkey can perceive some specific sweet-tasting proteins. Furthermore, the sweet receptor of squirrel monkey responses to the such sweeteners cannot be inhibited by the sweet inhibitor lactisole. We compared the response differences of the squirrel monkey and human receptors and found that the residues in T1R2 determine species-dependent sweet taste toward saccharin, while the residues in either T1R2 or T1R3 are responsible for the sweet taste difference between humans and squirrel monkeys toward monellin. Molecular models indicated that electrostatic properties of the receptors probably mediate the species-dependent response to sweet-tasting proteins.