Bilateral Syphilitic Optic Neuropathy with Secondary Autoimmune Optic Neuropathy and Poor Visual Outcome.

We describe the case of a 65-year-old man who suffered progressive visual loss despite appropriate treatment of ocular syphilis. Our patient initially presented with a unilateral 6th nerve palsy and associated double vision, which self-resolved over 6 months. His ophthalmic examination was otherwise normal.

Divided visual attention: A comparison of patients with multiple sclerosis and controls, assessed with an optokinetic nystagmus suppression task.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) frequently causes impairment of cognitive function. We compared patients with MS with controls on divided visual attention tasks. The MS patients' and controls' stare optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) was recorded in response to a 24°/s full field stimulus.

Optokinetic nystagmus as an assessment of visual attention to divided stimuli.

Attentional resources are finite and decline with age. We measured subjects' abilities to generate optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), to suppress it with fixation and to continue to suppress it when fixating while simultaneously paying covert attention to a feature of the optokinetic (OK) stimulus. During fixation with a red laser spot, OKN was almost fully suppressed.

Lightning strikes twice: Leber hereditary optic neuropathy families with two pathogenic mtDNA mutations.

Objective: To report the clinical and mitochondrial genetic analyses of two families, each of which carries both the 11778 and 14484 Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) mutations in mitochondrial DNA.

Methods: In addition to detailed clinical histories, the complete sequence of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from each family was determined.

Results: A small Australian LHON family (Vic20) and a family from the United States carry the 11778 and 14484 LHON mutations.