Publications by authors named "Isabelle Billig"

Corneal opacification is the fourth most common cause of blindness globally behind cataracts, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration. The standard treatment of serious corneal scarring is corneal transplantation. Though it is effective for restoring vision, the treatment outcome is not optimal, due to limitations such as long-term graft survival, lifelong use of immunosuppressants, and a loss of corneal strength.

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To view a nearby target, the three components of the near response are brought into play: ) the eyes are converged through contraction of the medial rectus muscles to direct both foveae at the target, ) the ciliary muscle contracts to allow the lens to thicken, increasing its refractive power to focus the near target on the retina, and ) the pupil constricts to increase depth of field. In this study, we utilized retrograde transsynaptic transport of the N2c strain of rabies virus injected into the ciliary body of one eye of macaque monkeys to identify premotor neurons that control lens accommodation. We previously used this approach to label a premotor population located in the supraoculomotor area.

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Purpose: These experiments were designed to reveal the location of the premotor neurons that have previously been designated physiologically as the midbrain near response cells controlling vergence, lens accommodation, and pupillary constriction in response to target distance.

Methods: To identify this population, the fixed N2c strain of rabies virus was injected into the ciliary body of seven Macaca fascicularis monkeys. The virus was trans-synaptically transported to the brain.

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