Neural markers of suppression in impaired binocular vision

Abstract Objective/Purpose Even after conventional patching treatment, individuals with a history of amblyopia typically lack good stereo vision. This is often attributed to atypical suppression between the eyes, yet the specific mechanism is still unclear. Guided by computational models of binocular vision, we tested explicit predictions about how neural responses to contrast might differ in individuals with impaired binocular vision. Design A 5 × 5 factorial repeated measures design was used, in which all participants completed a set of 25 conditions (stimuli of different contrasts shown to the left and right eyes). Participants 25 individuals with a history of amblyopia, and 19 control participants with typical visual development, participated in the study. Methods Neural responses to different combinations of contrast in the left and right eyes, were measured using both electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Stimuli were sinusoidal gratings with a spatial frequency of 3c/deg, flickering at 4Hz. In the fMRI experiment, we also ran population receptive field and retinotopic mapping sequences, and a phase-encoded localiser stimulus, to identify voxels in primary visual cortex (V1) sensitive to the main stimulus. Main outcome measures The main outcome measures were the signal-to-noise ratio of the steady state visual evoked potential, and the fMRI β weights from a general linear model. Results Neural responses generally increased monotonically with stimulus contrast. When measured with EEG, responses were attenuated in the weaker eye, consistent with a fixed tonic suppression of that eye. When measured with fMRI, a low contrast stimulus in the weaker eye substantially reduced the response to a high contrast stimulus in the stronger eye. This effect was stronger than when the stimulus-eye pairings were reversed, consistent with unbalanced dynamic suppression between the eyes. Conclusions Measuring neural responses using different methods leads to different conclusions about visual differences in individuals with impaired binocular vision. Both of the atypical suppression effects may relate to binocular perceptual deficits, e.g. in stereopsis, and we anticipate that these measures could be informative for monitoring the progress of treatments aimed at recovering binocular vision.