| 2003 |
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YEAR BOOK |
Dublin Institute of Technology
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Ocular Science Research
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� Veronica O'Dwyer researching Amblyopia, a condition of poor vision, which cannot be corrected by spectacles, and which is usually caused by developmental problems in the eye and brain during infancy.
� Peter Davison & James Loughman researching Pre-Attentive Visual Search (PAVS) in glaucoma. � David O'Brien & Peter Davison have researched and developed a number of awarding winning diagnostic ophthalmic instruments. � James Walsh & Linda Moore researching the quantification of the ultraviolet (UV) light field at the human eye and its relationship to ocular diseases. |
To fund Ocular Science Research, the above have recently been awarded a DIT Research Support Unit Team Building Grant for �50,000, which will provide funding for a broad range of ocular science research.
As a specific example of the research above, Veronica O'Dwyer is investigating functional amblyopia, which is defined as reduced visual acuity in an otherwise healthy and properly corrected eye. It is the commonest visual defect of childhood, affecting between 3% and 5% of the population. Amblyopia is usually associated with misalignment of the visual axes (strabismus) and/or unequal refractive errors in the two eyes (anisometropia). Early detection of amblyopia is crucial because the visual deficits associated with the condition can be reversed within a limited time frame only.
Existing methods for detecting the presence of amblyopia rely upon visual acuity measures as a means of discriminating between normal and abnormal visual function. The main problem with this approach is that visual acuity may not represent the most appropriate means of assessing visual performance in amblyopic subjects. Several psychophysical studies have shown that, in addition to losses in resolution, amblyopes demonstrate deficits across a range of visual tasks, including losses in high-spatial frequency contrast sensitivity and, in particular, in spatial localization tasks. Also, to date, it has been thought that strabismus and anisometropia affect vision in distinct ways. Strabismus is thought to cause a greater positional deficit than anisometropia. However, recent anatomical and physiological investigations do not support this difference.
Veronica O'Dwyer is currently examining different aspects of visual function for e.g. visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and positional acuity in pure strabismic and pure anisometropic amblyopes in order to compare the sensitivity and specificity of the various tasks for identifying reduced visual function in functional amblyopia. The aim of the research is to identify the optimum means for detecting visual losses associated with amblyopia and to determine the visual task most appropriate for assessing changes in visual performance in subjects undergoing amblyopia therapy. The investigations will also determine if differences exist in the positional deficit between strabismic and anisometropic amblyopes.
Contact: Dr Peter Hendicott; Tel: 01-402 4669; Fax: 01-402 4988; E-mail: [email protected]