Developmental aspects of experimental myopia in chicks: susceptibility, recovery and relation to emmetropization.

Chicks deprived of form-vision in the lateral part of their visual fields become severely myopic largely because of elongation of the vitreous chamber. The myopia mostly affects the visually deprived nasal retina; the nondeprived temporal retina is unaffected. These changes occur most rapidly early in life, being evident then after only 3 days of visual restriction. The susceptibility declines with age, being proportional to the rate of increase of axial length. Recovery from this myopia occurs if the visual restriction is removed during the first 6 weeks of life, as a result of the cessation of elongation of the vitreous chamber. The rate of recovery is directly related to the degree of myopia and inversely related to age. The pattern of changes in refractive status and variability argue for the probable existence of an active mechanism regulating eye growth in a manner dependent on refractive error, thereby producing emmetropization.