Effects of eye rotation on visually guided behavior.
Visually guided behavior was examined in cats reared with one eye intorted, one eye extorted, or monocular section of the extraocular muscles. Kittens from 2 to 4 mo old jumped from a tower onto a platform in a pan of water. They refused to jump or missed the platform more often when forced to use the rotated eye than when forced to use the unoperated eye. This deficit was eliminated if the non-rotated eye was sutured at the time of eye rotation. Further, when the extraocular muscles were cut but the eye was not rotated, jumping was normal. Acuity was measured using an alley box in which the cats were required to distinguish between horizontal and vertical stripes. No cats were blind when tested with the operated eye. Although not conclusive, the data suggest that the acuity of the rotated eye was slightly lower than that of the unoperated eye. The visual field of the rotated eye was also abnormal. Regardless of the direction of eye rotation, the cats appeared blind in the contralateral and lower visual quadrants. This field deficit was much less severe in animals with extraocular muscle section alone and did not occur in rotation-plus-suture animals. The visual-field deficits in the contralateral field can be explained by assuming that each collicular or cortical region always controls orienting to the same region of the visual field. We are, however, unable to explain the deficits in the lower field in terms of the mapping data from the previous paper (4).
D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002415:Cats; D005133:Eye Movements; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation; D013477:Superior Colliculi / Q000502:physiology; D014792:Visual Acuity; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields