Background:Central vision loss, such as in the case of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), has a a major negative impact on patients’ quality of life. However, some patients have shown spontaneous adaptive strategies development, mostly relying on their peripheral vision. Objective:This study assesses eye movement and eccentric visual function adaptive behaviors of a healthy population in the presence of simulated central vision loss. We wished to determine how central vision loss affects eye movements, specifically the foveal-target alignment. Methods:Fifteen healthy participants (7 females, M = 21.69, SD = 2.13) discriminated the orientation of a Gabor relative to the vertical located at 12 deg of eccentricity to the right of fixation, in the presence of a gaze-contingent artificial central scotoma either visible or invisible. The artificial central scotoma was 4° diameter in order to simulate an earlier stage of degenerative diseases while still impairing foveal vision. The target’s orientation varied between 10° counter-clockwise and 10° clockwise. Each participant performed four blocks of 75 trials each per day over 10 days, the first day being a baseline without scotoma. Results:We found changes in the endpoints of the 1st saccade over the practice days. The most common pattern is a gradual upward shift. We also observed a significant increase in discrimination performance over the 9 days of practice. We did not find any difference linked to the scotoma types. Conclusions:These findings suggest that the presence of an artificial central scotoma combined with a challenging discrimination task induces both changes in saccade planning mechanisms, resulting in a new eccentric-target alignment, and improvements in eccentric visual functions. This demonstrates the potential of this research paradigm to understand and potentially improve visual function in patients with central vision loss.

中文翻译：

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存在人工中央暗点时眼球运动参数的变化。

背景：中央视力丧失，例如年龄相关性黄斑变性 (AMD)，对患者的生活质量产生重大负面影响。然而，一些患者表现出自发的适应性策略发展，主要依赖于他们的周边视觉。目的：本研究评估了健康人群在模拟中央视力丧失的情况下的眼球运动和偏心视觉功能适应性行为。我们希望确定中央视力丧失如何影响眼球运动，特别是中心凹目标对齐。方法：15 名健康参与者（7 名女性，M = 21.69，SD = 2.13）区分 Gabor 相对于位于注视右侧偏心 12 度处的垂直方向的方向，在存在凝视条件人工中心盲点的情况下可见或不可见。人工中央暗点的直径为 4°，以模拟退行性疾病的早期阶段，同时仍损害中央凹视力。目标的方向在逆时针 10° 和顺时针 10° 之间变化。每位参与者在 10 天内每天进行四组 75 次试验，第一天是没有暗点的基线。结果：我们发现练习日期间第一次扫视的终点发生了变化。最常见的模式是逐渐向上移动。我们还观察到，在 9 天的练习中，辨别能力显着提高。我们没有发现任何与暗点类型相关的差异。结论：这些发现表明，人工中央暗点的存在与具有挑战性的辨别任务相结合，会导致眼跳规划机制的两种变化，导致新的偏心目标对齐，以及偏心视觉功能的改进。这证明了该研究范式在理解和潜在改善中央视力丧失患者视觉功能方面的潜力。