Paediatric vision screening in the primary care setting in Ontario.

Objectives: Early intervention is critical to prevent treatable causes of vision loss in children. The objectives of the current study are: (1) to assess how well primary care physicians in Ontario follow the vision screening guidelines for children as recommended by the Canadian Paediatric Society and the Rourke Baby Record and (2) to identify barriers to vision screening in the primary care setting.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells and the Modelling of Alzheimer's Disease: The Human Brain Outside the Dish.

Background: Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease (AD) are a global health issue primarily in the elderly. Although AD has been investigated using primary cultures, animal models and post-mortem human brain tissues, there are currently no effective treatments.

Summary: With the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) reprogrammed from fully differentiated adult cells such as skin fibroblasts, newer opportunities have arisen to study the pathophysiology of many diseases in more depth.

The Initiation of Smooth Pursuit is Delayed in Anisometropic Amblyopia.

Purpose: Several behavioral studies have shown that the reaction times of visually guided movements are slower in people with amblyopia, particularly during amblyopic eye viewing. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the initiation of smooth pursuit eye movements, which are responsible for accurately keeping moving objects on the fovea, is delayed in people with anisometropic amblyopia.

Methods: Eleven participants with anisometropic amblyopia and 14 visually normal observers were asked to track a step-ramp target moving at ±15°/s horizontally as quickly and as accurately as possible.

Developmental Trajectory of McGurk Effect Susceptibility in Children and Adults With Amblyopia.

Purpose: The McGurk effect is an audiovisual illusion that involves the concurrent presentation of a phoneme (auditory syllable) and an incongruent viseme (visual syllable). Adults with amblyopia show less susceptibility to this illusion than visually normal controls, even when viewing binocularly. The present study investigated the developmental trajectory of McGurk effect susceptibility in adults, older children (10-17 years), and younger children (4-9 years) with amblyopia.

Saccadic adaptation in visually normal individuals using saccadic endpoint variability from amblyopia.

Purpose: Saccadic adaptation is affected by the spatial variability of the adapting error signal. Recently, we have shown that saccadic adaptation is reduced in anisometropic amblyopia, possibly impacted by spatially imprecise saccades. Here, we tested this idea by quantifying the saccadic endpoint variability difference between people with anisometropic amblyopia and visually normal individuals.

Short-term saccadic adaptation in patients with anisometropic amblyopia.

Purpose: Amblyopia is a developmental disorder characterized by impairment of spatiotemporal visual processing that also affects oculomotor and manual motor function. We investigated the effects of amblyopia on short-term visuomotor adaptation using a saccadic adaptation paradigm.

Methods: A total of 8 patients with anisometropic amblyopia and 11 visually-normal controls participated.