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Biomedical subjects

I Abramov

Publications and source records attributed to I Abramov.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Childhood visual experience affects adult voluntary ocular motor control.

PURPOSE: To quantify the effects of childhood visual experience/chronic visual deprivation upon adult voluntary ocular motor control. METHODS: Eye movements of blind and sighted adults were elicited and videotaped in total darkness. The videotaped responses were digitized using an eye tracker, yielding data from 10 congenitally blind (infantile onset, blindness before age 1 year), 16 adventitiously blind, and 9 sighted persons. RESULTS: Multivariate analysis of variance, trend analyses and post hoc tests revealed that primary position fixational stability and consistency of return to primary position were lowest in the congenitally blind vs. the adventitiously blind group, and highest in the sighted. Duration of adventitious blindness reduced primary position stability but not consistency of return to primary position. Secondary position maximum amplitudes: congenitally blind mean, 14 degrees; adventitiously blind mean, 40 degrees; sighted mean, 47 degrees. Average velocity (a form of Main Sequence) increased significantly with amplitude in all three groups. CONCLUSIONS: Visual deprivation can greatly attenuate but does not abolish human voluntary eye movement. Adventitious blindness exerts minimal to profound effects, commensurate with age of vision loss.

Adaptation, Physiological↗
PubMed1997

Eye movement-based measures of development of spatial contrast sensitivity in infants.

This study presents spatial contrast sensitivity functions from 66 infants ranging in age from 12 to 146 days. Functions were derived using a behavioral method based on eye movements; in this method, the subject viewed drifting sinusoidal gratings while an experimenter, who did not know the direction of stimulus drift, voted on that direction based only on the record of the subject's eye movements. Results show that there is a marked increase in contrast sensitivity across age, as well as a modest shift of the peak of the function and of the acuity limit to higher spatial frequencies. However, when normalized with respect to peak frequency and peak sensitivity, the functions at all ages have the same general shape and can be fit with a standard template curve used to describe contrast sensitivity in the adult visual system; that is, even the youngest infants clearly show a drop in sensitivity at frequencies below the peaks of their functions.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Improvement of the extravehicular activity suit for the MIR orbiting station program.

Since 1977, EVA suits of the semi-rigid type have been used to support sorties from Russian orbiting stations. Currently, within the MIR station program, the Orlan-DMA, the latest modification of the Orlan semi-rigid EVA suit is used by crewmembers. Quite some experience has been gained by Russia in operations of the Orlan type suits. It has proved the advantages of the EVA suit of a semi-rigid configuration, featuring donning/doffing through a hinged backpack door with a built-in life support system. Meanwhile there were some wishes and comments from the crewmembers addressed to the enclosure design and some LSS components. Currently a number of ways and methods are being developed to improve operational characteristics of the suit as well as to enhance its reliability and lifetime. The forthcoming EVAs to be performed by the STS-MIR crewmembers and future EVAs from the common airlock of the International Space Station Alpha make implementation of the planned improvements even more consistent. The paper analyzes the experience gained in the Orlan-DMA operation and discusses planned improvements in light of the forthcoming activities. In particular the Orlan enhancement program is aimed to make the donning/doffing easier, enhance enclosure mobility, improve the condensate removal unit, increase the CCC (Contamination Control Cartridge) operation time and simplify the onboard subsystem design concept.

Communication↗
PubMed1996

Color vision measured with pseudoisochromatic plates at five-and-a-half years in eyes of children from the CRYO-ROP study.

PURPOSE: To investigate the prevalence of color deficits at age 5 1/2 years in preterm children with birth weights of less than 1251 g who participated in the multicenter Cryotherapy for Retinopathy of Prematurity (CRYO-ROP) study. METHODS: Two cohorts of CRYO-ROP participants served as subjects: 1055 children who participated in a long-term study of the natural history of ROP at 5 of the 23 CRYO-ROP centers, and 187 children (from all 23 study centers) who had threshold ROP in both eyes and who were randomized to receive cryotherapy in 1 eye. Monocular color vision was tested at age 5 1/2 years, using the Standard Pseudoisochromatic Plates, part 2 (SPP2) for acquired color vision defects. RESULTS: In the Natural History cohort, prevalence of red-green (R-G) color deficits was 6.6% for males and 1.0% for females, similar to that of the general adult population. Prevalence of blue-yellow (B-Y) color deficits was 2.8% for males and 2.2% for females, more than 200 times that in the general adult population. Prevalence of B-Y deficits was not related to birth weight, gestational age, acute-phase ROP, optic atrophy, or retinal residua of ROP, but was related to visual acuity. In the Threshold ROP cohort, color vision deficits were no more likely in eyes that had received cryotherapy than in control eyes. CONCLUSIONS: The results confirm an increased prevalence of B-Y deficits in children born before term, and provide evidence that the increased prevalence is not related to birth weight, gestational age, or severity of ROP within this group of preterm children. No evidence was found to indicate that cryotherapy increased the rate of color vision deficits in eyes with threshold ROP.

Birth Weight↗
PubMed1994

Describing color appearance: hue and saturation scaling.

Most of the fully elaborated systems for describing color appearance rely on matching to samples from some standard set. Since this is not satisfactory in all situations, various forms of direct linguistic description have been used, ranging from color naming to continuous numerical scaling of sensations. We have developed and extensively applied a particular variant in which subjects use percentage scales to describe their sensations of the four unique hue sensations (red, yellow, green, blue) and of the apparent saturation of colored lights. In this paper we explore the properties of this procedure, including its statistical properties and reliability both between and within subjects, in different contexts. We conclude that the technique is robust, easy to use, and provides direct access to sensory experience.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Calibration of the Hirschberg test in human infants.

PURPOSE: The Hirschberg ratio has been defined as the ratio of the change in angular position of the line of sight to the change in location of the first Purkinje image relative to the pupil center. This study was designed to determine empirically whether the adult value of the Hirschberg ratio (approximately 22 prism diopters/mm) is a suitable value to use for all ages. Because many structures in the eye are growing during the 1st year, it is possible that there could be some change in the Hirschberg ratio during this period. METHODS: A photographic technique was used to calculate the Hirschberg ratio for 323 infants between the ages of 27 and 365 days and for ten adult subjects. The study also measured angle lambda, the angle between the line of sight and the pupillary axis, in these populations. RESULTS: The Hirschberg ratio did not change with age during infancy and was similar for adults and infants both in value and in variance. Angle lambda, however, declined rapidly, from an extrapolated value of about 8.4 degrees at birth to near 5 degrees at 5 months, a change that is assumed to reflect axial growth of the eye. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the same average Hirschberg ratio can be used to estimate angle of strabismus across age. The change in angle lambda is important to consider when evaluating angle of deviation from measures using the Hirschberg test.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Goldfish ganglion cells with unusual receptive field properties.

Goldfish retinal ganglion cells with unusual response properties are described. Each cell was classified as either Y-like or W-like, based upon its responses to sinusoidally modulated contrast-reversal gratings presented at various positions across the cell's receptive field. The unusual responses of the cells (which distinguish them from typical Y-like and W-like cells) occurred when sinusoidal gratings were drifted across the receptive field at a constant temporal rate. These cells responded at double the stimulus temporal rate to low-spatial-frequency gratings; a Fourier decomposition of the response revealed a large second harmonic component. However, to high-spatial-frequency stimuli, the response modulated at the temporal frequency of the stimulus; the Fourier fundamental component dominated the response. To examine the underlying receptive field mechanisms of these cells, each cell's response was analyzed using several different response measures. The results suggest that the receptive field properties of these unusual cells differ from the typical center/surround organization and confirm recent findings that the receptive fields of goldfish ganglion cells consist of inhomogeneities and subareas.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1992

Development of accommodation and convergence in infancy.

Paraxial photorefraction was used to assess the development of accommodation and convergence in a large sample of infants under 1 year of age. The infants viewed small dolls placed at various distances (200-25 cm). The majority of infants at all ages demonstrated appropriate convergence for target distance, regardless of manifest refractive error. However, accommodation lagged behind convergence in development. Infants under 2 months tended to demonstrate either flat accommodation responses with a fixed plane of focus at around 30 cm, or accommodated appropriately for near targets, but failed to relax their accommodation sufficiently for the more distant targets. Thus, the focussing error increased with increasing target distance. Since the manifest refractive error was estimated by extrapolating the accommodation function to 0 diopters demand, these infants demonstrated spuriously myopic behavior. After 2 months, the majority of infants showing emmetropic behavior had accommodation responses that changed appropriately with target distance. However, infants with myopic or hyperopic manifest refractive errors displayed a variety of accommodative styles.

Accommodation, Ocular↗
PubMed1992

Color appearance across the retina: effects of a white surround.

Hue and saturation scaling was used to measure the appearance of spectral lights as a function of stimulus size at loci spaced across the horizontal meridian. At a given locus, each hue (red, yellow, green, and blue) grew as a function of stimulus size to some asymptotic value. Growth functions fitted to the hue data were used to derive the sizes of perceptive fields of the hue mechanisms. We had previously investigated the size scales of these fields by using stimuli presented on a dark background: Field sizes for all mechanisms increased with eccentricity, this increase was greater on the temporal than on the nasal retina, and the retinal size scales of the different hue mechanisms were not the same. We now report the results of repeating the study with stimuli embedded in a white surround rather than in darkness. The main effects of the white surround were as follows: Sizes of perceptive fields of all mechanisms were smaller everywhere than with the dark surround. For small fields, stimuli appeared everywhere more saturated with the white surround, but larger stimuli appeared less saturated.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Color appearance in the peripheral retina: effects of stimulus size.

Hue and saturation scaling were used to measure the appearance of spectral lights as a function of stimulus size for nine loci across the horizontal retinal meridian. At a given locus, each hue (R, Y, G, and B) grew as a function of stimulus size up to some asymptotic value. The parameter values of Michaelis-Menten growth functions fitted to the hue data were used to derive the sizes of the so-called perceptive fields of the hue mechanisms. The fields for all mechanisms increased with eccentricity, and this increase was greater on the temporal than on the nasal retina. By increasing stimulus size it was possible to achieve fovealike color vision to eccentricities of 20 deg. However, even the largest stimuli failed to produce fully saturated hues at 40 deg. The retinal size scales of the four hue mechanisms were not the same; those for R and B were similar, and these mechanisms had the smallest perceptive fields everywhere. The perceptive fields of the hue mechanisms at all loci were larger than anatomical estimates of the sizes of retinal receptive fields.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Screening infant vision with paraxial photorefraction.

Early screening for refractive errors is highly desirable. Techniques for doing this must be usable with noninstructable subjects (infants), noninvasive, and relatively easy to use. Photorefraction has been used to examine infants' refractive status. However, unless cycloplegia is used, the results can be difficult to evaluate, inasmuch as the subject's plane of focus is not known. This paper describes a photorefraction system that is being used for routine screening of young infants, without cycloplegia and without using highly skilled personnel. The major innovation is the systematic presentation of attractive targets at distances that present a range of demands to accommodation. Changes in the fundal reflections, seen in the photographs taken as the infant views the different targets, can be interpreted unequivocally to identify severe myopia and hyperopia, anisometropia, heterotropia, and anisocoria. The results can also be quantified and are compared with retinoscopic refractions.

Clinical Protocols↗
PubMed1989

Orientation and direction tuning of goldfish ganglion cells.

Orientation and direction tuning were examined in goldfish ganglion cells by drifting sinusoidal gratings across the receptive field of the cell. Each ganglion cell was first classified as X-, Y-, or W-like based on its responses to a contrast-reversal grating positioned at various spatial phases of the cell's receptive field. Sinusoidal gratings were drifted at different orientations and directions across the receptive field of the cell; spatial frequency and contrast of the grating were also varied. It was found that some X-like cells responded similarly to all orientations and directions, indicating that these cells had circular and symmetrical fields. Other X-like cells showed a preference for certain orientations at high spatial frequencies suggesting that these cells possess an elliptical center mechanism (since only the center mechanism is sensitive to high spatial frequencies). In virtually all cases, X-like cells were not directionally tuned. All but one Y-like cell displayed orientation tuning but, as with X-like cells, orientation tuning appeared only at high spatial frequencies. A substantial portion of these Y-like cells also showed a direction preference. This preference was dependent on spatial frequency but in a manner different from orientation tuning, suggesting that these two phenomena result from different mechanisms. All W-like cells possessed orientation and direction tuning, both of which depended on the spatial frequency of the stimulus. These results support past work which suggests that the center and surround components of retinal ganglion cell receptive fields are not necessarily circular or concentric, and that they may actually consist of smaller subareas.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Spatial properties of goldfish ganglion cells.

We systematically classified goldfish ganglion cells according to their spatial summation properties using the same techniques and criteria used in cat and monkey research. Results show that goldfish ganglion cells can be classified as X-, Y-, or W-like based on their responses to contrast-reversal gratings. Like cat X cells, goldfish X-like cells display linear spatial summation. Goldfish Y-like cells, like cat Y cells, respond with frequency doubling at all spatial positions when the contrast-reversal grating consists of high spatial frequencies. There is also a third class of neurons, which is neither X- nor Y-like; many of these cells' properties are similar to those of the "not-X" cells found in the eel retina. Spatial filtering characteristics were obtained for each cell by drifting sinusoidal gratings of various spatial frequencies and contrasts across the receptive field of the cell at a constant temporal rate. The spatial tuning curves of the cell depend on the temporal parameters of the stimulus; at high drift rates, the tuning curves lose their low spatial frequency attenuation. To explore this phenomenon, temporal contrast response functions were derived from the cells' responses to a spatially uniform field whose luminance varied sinusoidally in time. These functions were obtained for the center, the surround, and the entire receptive field. The results suggest that differences in the cells' spatial filtering across stimulus drift rate are due to changes in the interaction of the center and surround mechanisms; at low temporal frequencies, the center and surround responses are out-of-phase and mutually antagonistic, but at higher temporal rates their responses are in-phase and their interaction actually enhances the cell's responsiveness.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Spatiospectral properties of goldfish retinal ganglion cells.

1. Responses of single ganglion cells from isolated goldfish retinas were recorded during presentation of various spatial and spectral stimuli. Each cell was classified along several spatial [spatial summation class, spatial contrast sensitivity function (CSF), and response to contrast] and spectral (Red-ON, Red-OFF or Red-ON/OFF, and spectral opponency/nonopponency) dimensions. 2. Linearity of spatial summation was determined from responses to contrast-reversal sinusoidal gratings positioned at various locations across the receptive field of the cell. CSFs were derived from responses to sinusoidal gratings of various spatial frequencies and contrasts, drifting across the cell's receptive field at a rate of 4 Hz. Response to contrast was determined from responses to variations in contrast of a sinusoidal grating of optimal spatial frequency. Spectral classifications were based on responses to monochromatic stimuli presented separately to the center and surround portions of the receptive field. 3. Linearity of spatial summation (X-, Y-, and W-like) was independent of the cell's spectral properties; for example, an X-like cell could be classified as either a Red-ON, Red-OFF, or Red-ON/OFF center cell and as spectrally opponent or nonopponent. 4. There were differences in response to contrast across spectral categories. Red-OFF center cells were very sensitive to contrast compared with Red-ON center cells. Spectrally nonopponent cells were more responsive to contrast than spectrally opponent cells. 5. There were dramatic differences across the spectral categories in relative sensitivity to low spatial frequency stimuli; however, the spatial resolution (i.e., sensitivity to high spatial frequencies) of each spectral classification appeared to be similar.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1988

The distribution of fixation durations in infants and naive adults.

The distributions of durations of fixations from infants and free-viewing adults are shown to be basically exponential for different stimulus conditions. It is found that fixation duration can be divided into two periods. One, the alpha-period, is a refractory period during which a saccade does not occur and fluctuates across fixations. The other, the beta-period, is a random variable intrinsic to each fixation and constitutes a waiting-time for a saccade that occurs with constant probability per unit time. It is shown that mean duration decreases when stimulus size increases. These results suggest that fixations are terminated by saccades triggered by non-foveal stimulation.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Contributions of short-wavelength cones to goldfish ganglion cells.

There are conflicting reports about the existence and nature of a short-wavelength cone (S-cone) contribution to ganglion cells in the goldfish retina. The present study sought to resolve these discrepancies by examining the S-cone contribution while recording from single ganglion cells in the excised, isolated goldfish retina. The effect of variations in the retinal preparation (gas content and type of background lighting during recording) on the S-cone input was also examined. Cells were classified into one of three types based on the responses at light onset and offset, when responses were driven only by the long-wavelength cone system (L-cones) of the receptive field's center (L+/-(on-excitation/off-inhibition), L-/+, and L+/+). With rare exceptions, the threshold spectral sensitivities of the centers and surrounds of cells that possessed opposite on and off responses (L+/- and L-/+) exhibited S-cone contributions, either prior to and/or during chromatic adaptation of the middle- and long-wavelength cones; the S-cone response was antagonistic to the L-cone input. The L+/+ center cells also contained a S-cone input, but it was synergistic to the L-cone input at suprathreshold intensities. These findings were robust across all of the retinal preparations employed. The discrepancies in the previous work were probably due to the incomplete classification of cells because of the use of threshold responses only.

Adaptation, Physiological↗