Quantification of inter-ocular suppression in binocular vision impairment

Abstract

Systems, apparatus, and methods are provided for quantifying inter-ocular suppression in binocular vision impairment. The systems, apparatus, and methods may include a stimulus presentation device and a controller which present different stimuli to each eye of a patient. The stimuli can include letters, numbers, or shapes which are arranged in rows, and columns with a stimulus presented to each eye in a location corresponding a stimulus presented to the other eye. The combined contrast of corresponding stimuli equals a predetermined value, and this contrast can be adjusted with each iteration of stimuli presented. This adjustment can be based upon the patient's reports of what is seen and adjustments made by an algorithm executed by the controller. Suppression can thus be determined in terms of visual field location and quantified.

1 . A system for quantifying suppression in binocular vision of a patient, the system comprising:
 a stimuli presentation device configured to present stimuli comprising a distinct stimulus for each eye of the patient; and   a controller, operably connected to the stimuli presentation device, the controller comprising:   a computer comprising an interface configured to accept input from a clinician, a patient, or both;   an adaptive algorithm executed on the computer, the adaptive algorithm configured to accept a report describing what the patient sees when presented with the stimuli and calculate adjustments to the stimuli to be presented in the next iteration of stimuli; and   a stimulus generating component configured to provide the next iteration of stimuli to the patient via the stimuli presentation device.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the stimuli presentation device comprises 3D stereo shutter glasses, anaglyph glasses, polarized lenses, a Wheatstone stereogram, head mounted displays, lenticular screens, or any combination thereof. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system is configured to measure scale dependent suppression in the binocular vision of the patient. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the stimuli comprise bandpass filtered Sloan letters laid out in a manner comprising multiple rows of letters, each row of decreasing letter size, and each row having multiple letter, wherein each letter in a row is distinct and having a different amount of contrast. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4 , wherein each distinct stimulus for each eye of the patient has the same number of rows of letters and columns of letters, wherein a letter on a right eye stimulus corresponds to a letter on a left eye stimulus in a similar position, further wherein the corresponding letters have a combined contrast that is a fixed value. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the Sloan letters of the stimuli comprise peak spatial-frequencies of 0.5 to 10 cycles per degree. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the Sloan letters create a pattern that covers a main area of a contrast sensitivity function. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system is configured to measure suppression in the binocular vision of the patient while each eye of the patient is fixated on a spot on the distinct stimulus presented to each eye. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the system is configured to measure both visual-field and spatial-frequency dependent suppression in the binocular vision of the patient. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the stimuli comprise numbers or colored dots. 
     
     
         11 . A method comprising:
 presenting, via a computer controller and a stimuli presentation device, stimuli to a patient, the stimuli comprising a distinct stimulus for each eye of the patient;   accepting, via the computer controller, reports comprising observations from the patient regarding the stimuli;   creating an adjusted stimuli via an adaptive algorithm executed on the computer controller, the adaptive algorithm using the reports as input; and   presenting to the patient the adjusted stimuli via a stimulus generating component of the computer controller and the stimuli presentation device.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising evaluating the reports to determine whether suppression in binocular vision of the patient can be quantified. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising quantifying suppression in binocular vision of the patient. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the stimuli comprise bandpass filtered Sloan letters, numbers, or colored dots. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein a stimulus for a right eye and a stimulus for a left eye comprise corresponding features, the features comprising the bandpass filtered Sloan letters, numbers, or colored dots. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein each feature has a contrast value, further wherein a sum of the contrast values for corresponding features equals a fixed amount, the fixed amount being the same for each pair of corresponding features. 
     
     
         17 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by at least one processor, cause operations comprising:
 presenting, via a computer controller and a stimuli presentation device, stimuli to a patient, the stimuli comprising a distinct stimulus for each eye of the patient;   accepting, via the computer controller, reports comprising observations from the patient regarding the stimuli;   creating an adjusted stimuli via an adaptive algorithm executed on the computer controller, the adaptive algorithm using the reports as input; and   presenting to the patient the adjusted stimuli via a stimulus generating component of the computer controller and the stimuli presentation device.   
     
     
         18 . An apparatus comprising:
 means for presenting, via a computer controller and a stimuli presentation device, stimuli to a patient, the stimuli comprising a distinct stimulus for each eye of the patient;   means for accepting, via the computer controller, reports comprising observations from the patient regarding the stimuli;   means for creating an adjusted stimuli via an adaptive algorithm executed on the computer controller, the adaptive algorithm using the reports as input; and   means for presenting to the patient the adjusted stimuli via a stimulus generating component of the computer controller and the stimuli presentation device.   
     
     
         19 . The apparatus of  claim 18 , further comprising evaluating the reports to determine whether suppression in binocular vision of the patient can be quantified. 
     
     
         20 . The apparatus of  claim 18 , further comprising quantifying suppression in binocular vision of the patient. 
     
     
         21 . The apparatus of any of  claim 18 , wherein the stimuli comprise bandpass filtered Sloan letters, numbers, or colored dots. 
     
     
         22 . The apparatus of  claim 21 , wherein a stimulus for a right eye and a stimulus for a left eye comprise corresponding features, the features comprising the bandpass filtered Sloan letters, numbers, or colored dots. 
     
     
         23 . The apparatus of  claim 22 , wherein each feature has a contrast value, further wherein a sum of the contrast values for corresponding features equals a fixed amount, the fixed amount being the same for each pair of corresponding features.