Survival of retinal ganglion cells after damage to the occipital lobe in humans is activity dependent.

ABSTRACT: Damage to the optic radiations or primary visual cortex leads to blindness in all or part of the contralesional visual field. Such damage disconnects the retina from its downstream targets and, over time, leads to trans-synaptic retrograde degeneration of retinal ganglion cells. To date, visual ability is the only predictor of retinal ganglion cell degeneration that has been investigated after geniculostriate damage. Given prior findings that some patients have preserved visual cortex activity for stimuli presented in their blind field, we tested whether that activity explains variability in retinal ganglion cell degeneration over and above visual ability. We prospectively studied 15 patients (four females, mean age = 63.7 years) with homonymous visual field defects secondary to stroke, 10

SUBMITTER: Schneider CL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6408898 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature