Properties of LGN cells in kittens reared with convergent squint: a neurophysiological demonstration of amblyopia.

The spatial resolution of LGN cells has been studied in 4-5 month old kittens raised with convergent squint surgically produced in one eye at the age of 3-4 weeks. The 'sustained' cells which received inputs from the central retina of the squint eye showed significantly poorer spatial resolution (determined by the highest spatial frequency of a sinusoidal grating to which a cell responded with modulated firing) than those which received inputs from the central retina of the normal eye. The spatial resolution of cells which received inputs from the peripheral retina of the squint eye was not different from that of cells receiving inputs from the peripheral retina of the normal eye. The visual latency of 'sustained' cells which received an input from the area centralis of the squint eye was considerably lenghtned and the response showed a sluggish onset. Thus the most important clinical symptom of amblyopia, namely the reduction of foveal visual acuity, has been demonstrated in kittens raised with unilateral vonvergent squint. The results suggest that the lesion responsible for amblyopia due to squint might be a functional degeneration of the high spatial frequency tuning cells in the pathway prior to the visual cortex, i.e. in the retina or LGN.