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Abstract

Purpose: We investigated the pattern of meridional anisotropies, if any, for pattern onset-offset visual evoked potential (POVEPs) responses and psychophysical grating acuity (GA) in children with normal letter visual acuity (20/20 or better).

Methods: A total of 29 children (aged 3-9 years), nine of whom were astigmatic (AS), were recruited. Orientation-specific monocular POVEPs were recorded in response to sinewave grating stimuli oriented along the subjects' principal AS meridians. Horizontal and vertical gratings were designated Meridians 1 and 2, respectively, for nonastigmatic patients (Non-AS). Binocular POVEPs in response to the same stimuli, but oriented at 45°, 90°, 135°, and 180°, were recorded. Psychophysical GAs were assessed monocularly and binocularly along the same meridians using the same stimuli by a 2-alternative-forced-choice staircase technique. The C3 amplitudes and peak latencies of the POVEP and GAs were compared across meridians using linear mixed models (monocular) and ANOVA (binocular).

Results: There were significant meridional anisotropies in monocular C3 amplitudes regardless of astigmatism status (P = 0.001): Meridian 2 (mean ± SE Non-AS, 30.13 ± 2.07 μV; AS, 26.53 ± 2.98 μV) was significantly higher than Meridian 1 (Non-AS, 26.14 ± 1.87 μV; AS, 21.68 ± 2.73 μV; P = 0.019), but no meridional anisotropies were found for GA or C3 latency. Binocular C3 amplitude in response to horizontally oriented stimuli (180°, 29.71 ± 3.06 μV) was significantly lower than the oblique (45°, 36.62 ± 3 .05 μV; P = 0.03 and 135°, 35.95 ± 2.92 μV; P = 0.04) and vertical (90°, 37.82 ± 3.65 μV; P = 0.02) meridians, and binocular C3 latency was significantly shorter in response to vertical than oblique gratings (P ≤ 0.001).

Conclusions: Meridional anisotropy was observed in children with normal vision. The findings suggest that horizontal gratings result in a small, but significantly lower POVEP amplitude than for vertical and oblique gratings.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright 2019 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Subjects:	R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Optometry & Visual Sciences
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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