Effects of screen-based retinal light stimulation measured with a novel contrast sensitivity test

PLoS One. 2021 Jul 29;16(7):e0254877. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254877. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Myopia is increasing worldwide hence it exists a pressing demand to find effective myopia control strategies. Previous studies have shown that light, spectral composition, spatial frequencies, and contrasts play a critical role in refractive development. The effects of light on multiple retinal processes include growth regulation, but also visual performance and perception. Changes in subjective visual performance can be examined by contrast sensitivity (CS). This study was conducted to investigate whether retinal light stimulation of different wavelength ranges is able to elicit changes in CS and, therefore, may be used for myopia control purposes. In total, 30 right eyes were stimulated with the light of different wavelength ranges, including dominant wavelengths of ∼480 nm, ∼530 nm, ∼630 nm and polychromatic light via a commercial liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. Stimulation was performed screen full-field and on the optic nerve head only. CS was measured before any stimulation and after each stimulation condition using a novel and time-efficient CS test. Post-stimulation CS changes were analyzed by ANOVA regarding the influencing factors spatial frequency, stimulation wavelength and stimulation location. A priorly conducted verification study on a subset of five participants compared the newly developed CS test to a validated CS test. The novel CS test exhibited good reliability of 0.94 logCS and repeatability of 0.13 logCS with a duration of 92 sec ± 17 sec. No clinically critical change between pre- and post-stimulation CS was detected (all p>0.05). However, the results showed that post-stimulation CS differed significantly at 18 cpd after stimulation with polychromatic light from short-wavelength light (p<0.0001). Location of illumination (screen full-field vs. optic nerve head) or any interactions with other factors did not reveal significant influences (all p>0.05). To summarize, a novel CS test measures the relationship between retinal light stimulation and CS. However, using retinal illumination via LCD screens to increase CS is inconclusive.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Contrast Sensitivity*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Retina
  • Vision Tests*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was funded by Eberhard-Karls-University Tuebingen (Grant No. ZUK 63) as part of the German Excellence initiative from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Open Access Publishing Fund of University of Tuebingen. Carl Zeiss Vision International GmbH provided support in the form of salaries for authors KB and SW. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.