A Hypothetical Mechanism for DVD: Unbalanced Cortical Input to Subcortical Pathways

Dissociated vertical divergence (DVD) is commonly encountered in the infantile strabismus syndrome. The movement is said to be dissociated since alignment differs between right and left eye fixation. It has been hypothesized that DVD is caused by a primitive reflex present in fish. Visual pathways in the fish brain indeed are dissociated with complete crossing at the optic chiasm and projection to the superior colliculus instead of a visual cortex. Neuroanatomical data and clinical characteristics of DVD, however, contradict this hypothesis. From these data a new hypothesis arises: corticotectal lateralization. The absence of binocular development in the cerebral cortex in infantile strabismus gives rise to dissociated activation of subcortical pathways through individual less tightly linked colliculi.

[2]  J. Hernandez-Tamames,et al.  [Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the visual cortex: relation between stimulus intensity and bold response]. , 2007, Revista de neurologia.

[3]  J. Atkinson.  Development of optokinetic nystagmus in the human infant and monkey infant , 1979 .

[4]  K Hepp,et al.  Two- rather than three-dimensional representation of saccades in monkey superior colliculus. , 1991, Science.

[5]  Kathleen E Cullen,et al.  Dynamics of abducens nucleus neuron discharges during disjunctive saccades. , 2002, Journal of neurophysiology.

[6]  L. Chalupa,et al.  Functional and anatomical consequences of neonatal visual cortical damage in superior colliculus of the golden hamster. , 1978, Journal of neurophysiology.

[7]  D. Tweed,et al.  Stereopsis Outweighs Gravity in the Control of the Eyes , 2001, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[8]  J. V. Van Gisbergen,et al.  Perturbation of combined saccade-vergence movements by microstimulation in monkey superior colliculus. , 1999, Journal of neurophysiology.

[9]  Y. Shinoda,et al.  Commissural mirror-symmetric excitation and reciprocal inhibition between the two superior colliculi and their roles in vertical and horizontal eye movements. , 2007, Journal of neurophysiology.

[10]  D. Zee,et al.  Dissociated vertical deviation: an exaggerated normal eye movement used to damp cyclovertical latent nystagmus. , 1998, Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society.

[11]  A. Fuchs,et al.  Discharge patterns of neurons in the pretectal nucleus of the optic tract (NOT) in the behaving primate. , 1990, Journal of neurophysiology.

[12]  M. Carpenter,et al.  Fiber projections of the superior colliculus in the cat , 1961, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[13]  T. Shipley.  The Visually Evoked Occipitogram in Strabismic Amblyopia Under Direct-view Ophthalmoscopy* , 1969 .

[14]  H. Collewijn,et al.  Vergence eye movements of the rabbit in visuomotor behavior , 1979, Vision Research.

[15]  D. Guyton,et al.  Vertical fusional vergence: the key to dissociated vertical deviation. , 1999, Archives of ophthalmology.

[16]  G. DeAngelis,et al.  Linking Neural Representation to Function in Stereoscopic Depth Perception: Roles of the Middle Temporal Area in Coarse versus Fine Disparity Discrimination , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[17]  Harvey A Swadlow,et al.  The Impact of a Corticotectal Impulse on the Awake Superior Colliculus , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[18]  H. Collewijn,et al.  Binocular co‐ordination of human vertical saccadic eye movements. , 1988, The Journal of physiology.

[19]  B E Stein,et al.  Two visual corticotectal systems in cat. , 1984, Journal of neurophysiology.

[20]  Hongying Wang,et al.  Three-dimensional eye-head coordination after injection of muscimol into the interstitial nucleus of Cajal (INC). , 2007, Journal of neurophysiology.

[21]  D. Hubel,et al.  Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex , 1962, The Journal of physiology.

[22]  D. Boire,et al.  Development of the commissure of the superior colliculus in the hamster , 2006, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[23]  P. A. Bielschowsky.  Die einseitigen und gegensinnigen („dissoziierten“) Vertikalbewegungen der Augen , 1931, Albrecht von Graefes Archiv für Ophthalmologie.

[24]  H. Simonsz,et al.  Dissociated vertical deviation and eye torsion: Relation to disparity-induced vertical vergence. , 1997, Strabismus.

[25]  D. Moriarty,et al.  Anaesthetic depth at inductionAn evaluation using clinical eye signs and EEG polysomnography , 1998, Anaesthesia.

[26]  D. Hubel,et al.  Binocular interaction in striate cortex of kittens reared with artificial squint. , 1965, Journal of neurophysiology.

[27]  Wu Zhou,et al.  Premotor commands encode monocular eye movements , 1998, Nature.

[28]  D. L. Adams,et al.  Metabolic Mapping of Suppression Scotomas in Striate Cortex of Macaques with Experimental Strabismus , 1999, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[29]  P. Wahle,et al.  Neurotransmitter profile of saccadic omnipause neurons in nucleus raphe interpositus , 1994, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[30]  S. Sherman,et al.  Effects of early monocular deprivation on visual input to cat superior colliculus. , 1974, Journal of neurophysiology.

[31]  Robert L. Carroll,et al.  Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution , 1988 .

[32]  Neuronal circuits for accommodation and vergence in the primate , 2000 .

[33]  A. Fuchs,et al.  Gaze-stabilizing deficits and latent nystagmus in monkeys with early-onset visual deprivation: role of the pretectal not. , 2001, Journal of neurophysiology.

[34]  L. Tychsen.  Causing and curing infantile esotropia in primates: the role of decorrelated binocular input (an American Ophthalmological Society thesis). , 2007, Transactions of the American Ophthalmological Society.

[35]  P. D. Spear,et al.  Contributions of Y- and W-cell pathways to response properties of cat superior colliculus neurons: comparison of antibody- and deprivation-induced alterations. , 1986, Journal of neurophysiology.

[36]  Hongying Wang,et al.  Interstitial nucleus of cajal encodes three-dimensional head orientations in Fick-like coordinates. , 2007, Journal of neurophysiology.

[37]  L Tychsen,et al.  Nasotemporal asymmetries in V1: Ocular dominance columns of infant, adult, and strabismic macaque monkeys , 1997, The Journal of comparative neurology.