Purpose: To evaluate the stability of human binocular alignment under conditions of altered fixation and luminance.
Methods: Horizontal binocular alignment in 8 healthy orthotropic subjects was measured using infrared video-oculography (VOG) under conditions of binocular fixation and luminance change. Each testing condition was preceded by a binocular fixation period in room light (475 lux) to define the baseline binocular alignment. Binocular alignment was then measured in darkness without fixation, in room light through a semitranslucent filter that precluded fixation, and in darkness with a distant fixational target. We used the signed rank test to determine statistically whether these experimental conditions induced significant binocular alignment change from each baseline binocular alignment.
Results: The mean horizontal binocular alignment in the dark without fixation was similar to baseline binocular alignment (0.2° ± 2.8°; P = 0.4). The mean horizontal binocular alignment without fixation in room light was also similar to baseline binocular alignment (-1.4° ± 1.6°; P = 0.08). The mean horizontal binocular alignment in the dark when a fixational target was provided showed an exodrift compared to baseline alignment (2.3° ± 1.0°; P = 0.0004).
Conclusions: The human brain does not require visual input to maintain binocular alignment on a short-term basis. The resilience of binocular alignment probably reflects the presence of phoria adaptation.
Copyright © 2016 American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.