What happens to binocularity in primate strabismus?

Abstract

Normal humans for whom the positions and movements of the two eyes are constrained to be yoked together are able to extract rich binocular sensory information from the environment. Humans with strabismus are deficient in extracting some of this information. Studies of strabismus in non-human primates can augment what has been learned from humans about relationships between strabismus and sensory binocular function. For example, speculation about the role of binocular vision in primate evolution can help us understand why it is that the advantages of sensory binocular function outweigh the disadvantages of having the positions of the two eyes yoked together. Physiological optics assessments of fixation patterns and accommodative responses in monkeys provide information about how the brain accomplishes and coordinates motor and sensory binocular functions, and sets the stage for determining underlying neural mechanisms responsible for this coordination. Finally, a developmental perspective, concerned with events that occur during an early sensitive period in the life span of an infant primate, can help us understand how nature and nurture interact to set up this complex neural system in normal individuals, and how this process is disrupted in conditions such as strabismus.