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Biomedical subjects

D Regan

Publications and source records attributed to D Regan.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources
PubMed1977

Subclinical optic neuropathy in multiple sclerosis.

Optic neuropathy in multiple sclerosis is often not detectable by conventional clinical assessment. Temporal resolution of vision was measured at localized retinal sites by a simple perceptual test of double light-flash discrimination. Nine of 11 multiple sclerosis patients with normal fundi and no prior history of optic neuritis displayed abnormal temporal resolution. Double-flash discrimination was consistently more sensitive than any of the clinical variables measured and in some cases complementary to them. The more advanced the disease, the more spatially widespread was the double-flash impairment in the central visual field. There was a significantly increased level of double-flash impairment in advanced multiple sclerosis patients compared with patients with spinal forms of the disease and with unilateral retrobulbar neuritis.

Adult↗
PubMed1977

Auditory-visual interactions and the correspondence between perceived auditory space and perceived visual space.

Changes in the physical rate of a clicking or fluttering sound caused changes in the rate at which a simultaneously viewed light appears to flicker, even though the physical flicker rate remains constant. Perceived flicker rate increases in response to a rate of change of flicker frequency, and this auditory 'driving' does not depend on whether the auditory and visual sources have the same location. Visual evoked potentials do not correlate with 'driving'. Thus, the effect of auditory flutter upon perceived visual frequency is not due to the properties of Morrell-type bimodal neurons, nor does it reflect the activities of neurons responsible for maintaining correspondence between perceived auditory space and perceived visual space. The effect is possibly due to modification of a subjective criterion rather than, as previously suggested, to the entrainment or time-locking of physiological signals in the visual pathway.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1977

Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity in multiple sclerosis--hidden visual loss: an auxiliary diagnostic test.

In 48 patients with multiple sclerosis sine-wave gratings were used to test visual sensitivity for coarse, medium, and fine detail rather than measuring visual acuity for fine detail only, as in conventional clinical tests. In 20/48 patients the test revealed a visual defect of neural origin, qualitatively different from that caused by refractive error. In 11 of these 20 patients, visual sensitivity to detail of medium coarseness was markedly degraded, even though sensitivity to both coarse and fine detail was unimpaired. In 3 of these 20 patients visual sensitivity to coarse detail was selectively degraded. These visual defects could not be detected by the Snellen test, yet the patient might experience visual problems in everyday life and also experience distorted visual perception. Possible neural bases for these visual impairments are discussed. Since 8 of the 14 patients with selective loss showed no clinical evidence of visual involvement, the test can aid the earlier diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Effect of body temperature on visual evoked potential delay and visual perception in multiple sclerosis.

Seven multiple sclerosis patients were cooled and four heated, but evoked potential delay changed in only five out 11 experiments. Control limits were set by cooling eight and heating four control subjects. One patient gave anomalous results in that although heating degraded perceptual delay and visual acuity, and depressed the sine wave grating MTF, double-flash resolution was improved. An explanation is proposed in terms of the pattern of axonal demyelination. The medium frequency flicker evoked potential test seems to be a less reliable means of monitoring the progress of demyelination in multiple sclerosis patients than is double-flash campimetry or perceptual delay campimetry, although in some situations the objectivity of the evoked potential test would be advantageous.

Body Temperature↗
PubMed1977

Speedy assessment of visual acuity in amblyopia by the evoked potential method.

As an objective means of assessing visual acuity in young children and of monitoring acuity changes during occlusion therapy, the value of conventional evoked potential recording is restricted by lengthiness and by variability. This article describes one way of circumventing these disadvantages. A graph of evoked potential amplitude versus stimulus check size was continuously plotted while the child viewed a rapidly-oscillating chequerboard pattern whose check size was slowly zoomed up and down. Empirically, the shape of this graph gives an index of acuity and of the acuity difference between the amblyopic and fellow eye. The child's attention could be held for the 2-4 min required by superposing a movie cartoon on the chequerboard pattern, though the movie had a negligible effect on the chequerboard evoked potentials. The briefness of the procedure had the additional advantage of reducing variability.

Amblyopia↗
PubMed1977

Steady-state evoked potentials.

The advantages of steady-state EP recording include (1) speed in assessing sensory function in normal and sick infants (e.g., in amblyopia) and in sick adults (e.g., in multiple sclerosis); (2) monitoring certain activities of sensory pathways that do not intrude into conscious perception; (3) rapidly assessing sensory function when a large number of subjects must be tested (e.g., in refraction); (4) objective measurement at very high suprathreshold levels where psychophysical methods are difficult or ineffective; (5) rapidly assessing sensory function in normal subjects when EP variability and nonstationarity preculde lengthy experiments; and (6) proving a speedy objective equivalent to behavioral test in animals.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Latencies of evoked potentials to flicker and to pattern speedily estimated by simultaneous method.

This note describes a method for rapidly measuring the latency of a steady-state visual evoked potential (EP). Three sinewaves of different frequencies (F1, F2 and F3 c/sec) are summed, and the resulting waveform modulates either light intensity (for flicker stimulation) or spatial contrast (for pattern stimulation). Three evoked potentials of frequencies F1, F2 and F3 c/sec respectively are stimultaneously recorded by running three Fourier analysers in parallel. The outputs of the three analysers are presented in a single polar plot so as directly to display the three values of EP amplitude and phase. Practical methods for generating the pattern and flicker stimuli are described.

Computers, Analog↗
PubMed1976

Delayed visual perception and delayed visual evoked potentials in the spinal form of multiple sclerosis and in retrobulbar neuritis.

(1) We have used both subjective and evoked potential tests to study cases of multiple sclerosis with no history of retrobulbar neuritis (spinal patients) and compared them with patients with multiple sclerosis who had experienced an attack of retrobulbar neuritis (RBN). We measured the delay of steady-state evoked potentials (EPs) elicited by flicker in the medium-frequency (13-25 c/s) range, by flicker in the high-frequency (30-60 c/s) range, and by pattern-reversal. We also measured the delay in seeing (perceiving) both an increase of light intensity and a decrease of light intensity. (2) The difference between perceptual delays for the left and right eyes (D s) was abnormal when retrobulbar neuritis affected only one eye (22/22 patients) even when acuity and discs were normal. It might be supposed that this perceptual test would be ineffective when both eyes were affected by retrobulbar neuritis. However, the value of D was abnormal in cases of bilateral retrobulbar neuritis (5/5 patients). Probably the principal reason is that demyelination was patchy in the patients studied. For this same reason the difference between perceptual delays for two sites in the visual field (T s) may also be abnormal. In principle the perceptual delay test can be effective even when both eyes are similarly delayed: abnormal values of T were recorded in 5 spinal patients for whom D was normal. (3) Perceptual delays were measured for an extended group of 19 patients suffering from spinal multiple sclerosis. Taking both D and T into account, the perceptual delay test alone picked out 12/19 spinal patients. The perceptual delay test has the advantage over EP tests that it can detect islands of demyelination as small as 3 degrees diameter, and the apparatus is cheap and straightforward to use. (4) Thirteen patients with spinal multiple sclerosis, including 6 with no ocular signs or symptoms, were examined with a battery of two evoked potential and one perceptual test. Ten patients had clearly abnormal visual delays. Results for the remaining 3 were equivocal. Delay tests can reveal visual damage in most patients who have not experienced an attack of RBN as well as in practically all patients who have experienced an attack. (5) Correlations between the results of the various tests were different in spinal patients and in multiple sclerosis patients who had experienced an attack of retrobulbar neuritis. Flicker EPs, pattern EPs and visual perception were all delayed in every RBN patient, whereas for spinal patients different tests could pick up different patients. Flicker EPs picked up 5/13 spinal patients, pattern EPs 6/13, perceptual delay (D) picked up 4/13 and perceptual delay T picked up 7/13. (6) Delay tests divided spinal multiple sclerosis patients into two fairly distinct groups. In one group pattern EPs and perception were delayed; in the other group flicker EPs were delayed. This grouping corresponded to a clinical distinction between long-standing patients with visual signs and recent patients without visual signs...

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Impaired temporal resolution of vision after acute retrobulbar neuritis.

Following retrobulbar neuritis patients need a greater interval between two flashes of light in order to see them as double. The abnormality is large and easily detectable; the values lie well outside the normal 99 per cent tolerance limits. The abnormality sometimes occurs in localized retinal areas but can cover the whole visual field. The abnormality is a persistent one, remaining up to five years after visual acuity has returned to normal. It can occur in the absence of optic atrophy and with normal visual fields. There is also a delay in visual perception following retrobulbar neuritis but when this and double flash discrimination are both measured at the same retinal sites, the areas of abnormality do not correlate for the two tests. This indicates that the two tests monitor different aspects of visual damage. Double flash threshold can be a more sensitive indication of visual damage due to demyelination than conventional clinical tests including critical flicker fusion frequency. It provides an absolute measurement of local damage in the visual field and has advantages over the recording of perceptual delay and of evoked potentials.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1976

A possible means of monitoring the progress of demyelination in multiple sclerosis: effect of body temperature on visual perception of double light flashes.

The ability to discriminate closely separated pairs of light flashes as being double is impaired in multiple sclerosis. The effects of altering body temperature on double flash resolution and on visual acuity were studied in four multiple sclerosis patients and in control subjects. At demyelinated sites heating impaired and cooling improved double flash resolution. Visual acuity behaved similarly. The double flash test was very sensitive, changing up to 75 ms in response to simple heating and cooling procedures that produced small variations in acuity. Apart from its diagnostic value, the double flash test furnishes a simple in vivo model to study the effect of temperature change (and potential symptomatic therapy) on conduction in partially demyelinated axons in the visual system.

Adult↗
PubMed1975

The relation between discrimination and sensitivity in the perception of motion in depth.

1. Binocular discrimination of the direction of a target's motion in depth was measured in terms of the smallest angular difference in direction that could be detected with a probability 50% better than chance. Directional discrimination was measured for targets moving along 16 different trajectories directed to the left and right of the nose. 2. The relative velocities of the retinal images in the left and right eyes gave a sensitive cue to the direction of the target's motion in depth. 3. The direction of motion was bets discriminated when the target moved along a line directed close to the nose. A change in direction of only 0.2 degrees from this direction of motion could be detected. Discrimination showed two other maxima, one on each side of the central maximum. Discrimination fell to about 0.6-0.8 degrees when the target's direction was changed by only 6 degrees to either side of the nose. 4. The curve of sensitivity to movement in depth had a generally inverse shape to the directional discrimination curve: sensitivity was minimal for trajectories directed near the nose and increased for trajectories directed so as to miss the head. 5. The directional discrimination curve can be related to the sensitivity curves of the four postulated neural mechanisms tuned to different directions of motion in depth; there are three discrimination maxima and, correspondingly, three trajectories for which the slopes of adjacent sensitivity curves differ maximally. This suggests that binocular psychophysical judgements of the direction along which a target moves in depth are to some extent mediated by neural mechanisms that compare (e.g. subtract) the outputs of directionally tuned movement detectors. One function of such neural comparators might be to enhance psychophysical sensitivity to the direction along which a target moves in depth, and thus to provide a physiological basis for precisely judging whether or not an object will hit the head. 6. We suggest that the neural basis for judging the direction of moving objects has an analogy in colour vision where opponent-colour mechanisms enhance sensitivity to wave-length differences in such a way that wave-lengths are more easily discriminated in those parts of the spectrum where the slopes of the pigment action spectra differ maximally.

Adaptation, Ocular↗