Optic neuritis: From magnocellular to cognitive residual dysfunction

Issue title: Includes Special Section: Abstracts from the Joint Meeting of the FESN/GNP, Sept. 12-14, 2013, Berlin, Germany

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Viret, Anne-Claire^; | Cavézian, Céline | Coubard, Olivier | Vasseur, Vivien | Raz, Noa | Levin, Netta | Vignal, Catherine | Gout, Olivier | Chokron, Sylvie^{; ; ;} | >,

Affiliations: Unité Fonctionnelle Vision et Cognition, Fondation Ophtalmologique Rothschild, Paris, France | Service de Neurologie, Fondation Ophtalmologique Rothschild, Paris, France | Laboratoire Vision, Action, Cognition – EAU 01, Université Paris Descartes – Sorbonne Paris Cité, Boulogne-Billancourt, France | Service d'Ophtalmologie, Fondation Ophtalmologique Rothschild, Paris, France | The Neuropsychological Laboratory, CNS-Fed, Paris, France | Department of Neurology, Hadassah Hebrew-University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel | Laboratoire de Psychologie de la Perception, UMR 8158, CNRS and Université Paris-Descartes, Paris, France

Note: [] Corresponding author: Sylvie Chokron, Unité Fonctionnelle Vision et Cognition Fondation Ophtalmologique Rothschild, 25, rue Manin 75019, Paris, France. Tel.: +33 1 48 03 66 72; Fax: +33 1 48 03 65 51; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Optic Neuritis (ON) has been associated to both parvocellular dysfunction and to an alteration of the magnocellular pathway. After objective visual field and acuity recovery, ON patients may complain about their vision suggesting a residual subclinical deficit. To better characterize visual abnormalities, 8 patients recovering from a first ON episode as well as 16 healthy controls performed a simple detection task and a more complex categorization task of images presented in low spatial frequencies (to target the magnocellular system) or in high spatial frequencies (to target the parvocellular system) or of non-filtered images. When completing the tasks with their (previously) pathologic eye, optic neuritis patients showed lower accuracy compared to controls or to their healthy eye for low spatial frequency images only. Conjointly, the longest reaction times were observed with the previously pathologic eye regardless the type of images and to a greater extent in the categorization task than in the detection task. Such data suggest two distinct, although associated, types of residual dysfunction in ON: a magnocellular pathway alteration and a more general (magno and parvocellular) visual dysfunction that could implicate the cognitive levels of visual processing.

Keywords: Optic neuritis, spatial frequency, magnocellular pathway, visual cognition

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-120322

Journal: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 277-283, 2013