Intact retinal function provides the visual guidance component for visual motor performance tasks. Laser induced damage to the retina can degrade visual motor performance by limiting the normal retinal input to the motor system for visual motor guidance. Unlike tasks that are based strictly on the availability of normal visual function, visual motor performance may provide a lesser degree of diagnostic evidence of laser induced visual dysfunction in the presence of significant retinal damage. In order to more exactly track the extent of laser induced retinal damage, we have incorporated measurements of spectral sensitivity derived from a Non-Human Primate (NHP) visual pursuit motor tracking task and derived cone spectral sensitivity functions with peaks consistent with NHP cone photoreceptor spectral sensitivity functions. The reciprocal threshold energy levels for each of nine spectral points in the visible spectrum were determined and energy normalized with respect to the maximum energy. Pre-exposure spectral sensitivity functions revealed spectral peaks in regions comparable to the trichromatic cone photoreceptor system peaks. Post exposure spectral sensitivity measurements at exposure levels 2 log units below the retinal damage threshold revealed transient changes in the shape of the peaks in the post exposure spectral sensitivity that persisted up to 4 weeks post exposure. These effects are linked with transient retinal cone dysfunction and possibly with long term neural adaptive mechanisms.

Date Published: 5 March 2007
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 6426, Ophthalmic Technologies XVII, 64262A (5 March 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.712227

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6426:
Ophthalmic Technologies XVII
Bruce E. Stuck; Fabrice Manns; Per G. Söderberg; Michael Belkin M.D.; Arthur Ho, Editor(s)