Highlights • We report a case of neurosyphilis presenting with unilateral tonic pupil. • Unilateral tonic pupil might be an early ocular sign of neurosyphilis. • Penicillin therapy in the early stage ...would fairly improve tonic pupil. • A syphilitic test is necessary for patients with unilateral tonic pupil.
Rapid and stable control of pupil size in response to light is critical for vision, but the neural coding mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we investigated the neural basis of pupil control by ...monitoring pupil size across time while manipulating each photoreceptor input or neurotransmitter output of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), a critical relay in the control of pupil size. We show that transient and sustained pupil responses are mediated by distinct photoreceptors and neurotransmitters. Transient responses utilize input from rod photoreceptors and output by the classical neurotransmitter glutamate, but adapt within minutes. In contrast, sustained responses are dominated by non-conventional signaling mechanisms: melanopsin phototransduction in ipRGCs and output by the neuropeptide PACAP, which provide stable pupil maintenance across the day. These results highlight a temporal switch in the coding mechanisms of a neural circuit to support proper behavioral dynamics.
We developed an ecologically valid virtual peer interaction paradigm--the Chatroom Interact Task in which 60 pre-adolescents and adolescents (ages 9-17 years) were led to believe that they were ...interacting with other youth in a simulated internet chatroom. Youth received rejection and acceptance feedback from virtual peers. Findings revealed increased pupil dilation, an index of increased activity in cognitive and affective processing regions of the brain, to rejection compared to acceptance trials, which was greater for older youth. Data from a cell-phone Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocol completed following the task indicated that increased pupillary reactivity to rejection trials was associated with lower feelings of social connectedness with peers in daily life. Eyetracking analyses revealed attentional biases toward acceptance feedback and away from rejection feedback. Biases toward acceptance feedback were stronger for older youth. Avoidance of rejection feedback was strongest among youth with increased pupillary reactivity to rejection, even in the seconds leading up to and following rejection feedback. These findings suggest that adolescents are sensitive to rejection feedback and seek to anticipate and avoid attending to rejection stimuli. Furthermore, the salience of social rejection and acceptance feedback appears to increase during adolescence.
We developed a surgical technique that combines use of an iris hook and a pupil expansion ring in femtosecond laser–assisted cataract surgery complicated by insufficient mydriasis and an ectopic ...pupil. With this technique, the surgery, including femtosecond laser assistance, phacoemulsification, and intraocular lens implantation, can be accomplished successfully prior to iris repair. Financial Disclosure Dr. Malyugin receives travel grants from Alcon Laboratories, Inc. and Novartis Corp.; he receives royalties from Microsurgical Technology, Inc. None of the other authors has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned.
The development of critical thinking is conditioned by the action of many factors. To highlight this fact, I have focused on the opportunities offered by textbooks, teachers and learning activities ...for the development of the critical thinking of primary school pupils in Kosovo. The study begins from the idea that recognizing these opportunities opens the way for further improvement. The study was conducted with the participation of teachers and students. The textbooks of the primary school in Kosovo were also studied. The study has descriptive and mixed nature. His descriptive character is related to the description of the possibilities for the critical thinking development in the primary school, and the mixed character of methodology is related to the mixed nature of the collected data: textual facts, teachers’ opinions, learning practice / activities. The design of this research was conducted by combining three main methods: content analysis, interview and observation, by comparing each-other’s results of content analysis (tabs), teacher’s interviews, and observation in classes. This was done by analyzing the content of 24 textbooks (Literary anthology 1-5, Albanian Language 1-5, Civic Education 3-5, History 5, Art 1-5 and Music 1-5), 336 teachers were also interviewed and 336 lessons were observed. To collect data from the textbooks, an internationally recognized instrument for critical thinking has been modified, which is then adapted for the construction of an interview guide as well as for observing classroom activities. The study’s findings are interesting and important: it is noted that: the texts contain considerable opportunities for developing critical thinking, teachers have positive attitudes and classroom activities have useful elements that contribute to the development of critical thinking. Also, there are some differences from text to text, from teacher to teacher, and from one lesson to another. The study conclusions are descriptive and show which texts, opinions, and activities develop more critical thinking and which ones need further review and improvement. We come to some useful conclusions for both curriculum compilers (authors and publishers), their implementers, and inspectors.
Pupillometry provides a simple and noninvasive index for a variety of cognitive processes, including perception, attention, task consolidation, learning, and memory. The neural substrates by which ...such cognitive processes influence pupil diameter remain somewhat unclear, although cortical inputs to the locus coeruleus mediating arousal are likely involved. Changes in pupil diameter also accompany covert orienting; hence the oculomotor system may provide an alternative substrate for cognitive influences on pupil diameter. Here, we show that low-level electrical microstimulation of the primate frontal eye fields (FEFs), a cortical component of the oculomotor system strongly connected to the intermediate layers of the superior colliculus (SCi), evoked robust pupil dilation even in the absence of evoked saccades. The magnitude of such dilation scaled with increases in stimulation parameters, depending strongly on the intensity and number of pulses. Although there are multiple pathways by which FEF stimulation could cause pupil dilation, the timing and profile of dilation closely resembled that evoked by SCi stimulation. Moreover, pupil dilation evoked from the FEFs increased when presumed oculomotor activity was higher at the time of stimulation. Our findings implicate the oculomotor system as a potential substrate for how cognitive processes can influence pupil diameter. We suggest that a pathway from the frontal cortex through the SCi operates in parallel with frontal inputs to arousal circuits to regulate task-dependent modulation of pupil diameter, perhaps indicative of an organization wherein one pathway assumes primacy for a given cognitive process.
Pupillometry (the measurement of pupil diameter) provides a simple and noninvasive index for a variety of cognitive processes, offering a biomarker that has value in both health and disease. But how do cognitive processes influence pupil diameter? Here, we show that low-level stimulation of the primate frontal eye fields can induce robust pupil dilation without saccades. Pupil dilation scaled with the number and intensity of stimulation pulses and varied with endogenous oculomotor activity at the time of stimulation. The oculomotor system therefore provides a plausible pathway by which cognitive processes may influence pupil diameter, perhaps operating in conjunction with systems regulating arousal.
Pupillometry, the measurement of pupil diameter, has become increasingly popular as a tool to investigate human memory. It has long been accepted that the pupil is able to distinguish familiar from ...completely novel items, a phenomenon known as “pupil old/new effect”. Surprisingly, most pupillometric studies on the pupil old/new effect tend to disregard the possibility that the pupillary response to familiarity memory may not be entirely exclusive. Here, we investigated whether the pupillary response to old items correctly judged familiar (hits; accurate familiarity) can be differentiated from the pupillary response to new items wrongly judged familiar (false alarms; inaccurate familiarity). We found no evidence that the two processes could be isolated, as both accurate and inaccurate familiarity showed nearly identical mean and across‐time pupillary responses. However, both familiarity hits and false alarms showed pupillary responses unequivocally distinct from those observed during either recollection or novelty detection, which suggests that the pupil measure of familiarity hits and/or false alarms was sufficiently sensitive. The pupillary response to false alarms may have been partially driven by perceptual fluency, since novel objects incorrectly judged to be old (i.e., false alarms) showed a higher degree of similarity to studied images than items correctly judged as novel (i.e., correct rejections). Thus, our results suggest that pupil dilation may not be able to distinguish accurate from inaccurate familiarity using standard recognition memory paradigms, and they also suggest that the pupillary response during familiarity feelings may also partly reflect perceptual fluency.
Pupil dilation to familiarity hits is often used to index accurate familiarity memory. However, it might also reflect priming or fluency effects. We compared the pupillary response between familiarity hits and false alarms. The results showed that pupil dilation does not distinguish accurate from inaccurate familiarity during recognition memory judgments. Thus, pupil dilation to familiarity hits may not always indicate accurate familiarity and could instead reflect a shared process with false alarms, such as fluency.
Is the avatar scared? Pupil as a perceptual cue Dong, Yuzhu; Jörg, Sophie; Jain, Eakta
Computer animation and virtual worlds,
March/April 2022, 2022-03-00, 20220301, Letnik:
33, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The importance of eyes for virtual characters stems from the intrinsic social cues in a person's eyes. While previous work on computer generated eyes has considered realism and naturalness, there has ...been little investigation into how details in the eye animation impact the perception of an avatar's internal emotional state. We present three large scale experiments (N≈500) that investigate the extent to which viewers can identify if an avatar is scared. We find that participants can identify a scared avatar with 75% accuracy using cues in the eyes including pupil size variation, gaze, and blinks. Because eye trackers return pupil diameter in addition to gaze, our experiments inform practitioners that animating the pupil correctly will add expressiveness to a virtual avatar with negligible additional cost. These findings also have implications for creating expressive eyes in intelligent conversational agents and social robots.
We present three large scale experiments (N=500) that investigate the extent to which viewers can identify if an avatar is scared based on cues in the eyes, including pupil size variation, gaze, and blinks.
Pupillary characteristics may be affected in patients with Graves' ophthalmopathy (GO). However, small changes cannot be observed with clinical examination. Ophthalmologists and optometrists should ...be aware that dynamic pupillometry may have an important place in the quantitative assessment of pupillary characteristics in this patient population.
The aim of this study was to compare the static and dynamic pupillary responses of hyperthyroid and euthyroid GO patients and healthy control subjects.
The study enrolled 20 hyperthyroid patients with GO (Group 1), 20 euthyroid patients with GO (Group 2) and 40 control subjects with normal thyroid function tests and no known illness (Group 3). Following detailed ophthalmological examination, static and dynamic pupillometry measurements were performed. Dynamic pupillometry measurements including resting diameter, amplitude of pupil contraction, latency of pupil contraction, duration of pupil contraction, latency of pupil dilation, duration of pupil dilation, and velocity of pupil dilation were undertaken. Static pupillometry measurements including scotopic, mesopic, low-photopic, and high-photopic pupil diameters (PD) were undertaken. Data from the right eyes of the participants were used for statistical analysis.
Regarding the dynamic pupillary measurements, the latency of pupil contraction value was significantly higher (p = 0.007), and the velocity of pupil dilatation was significantly lower (p = 0.004) in Groups 1 and 2 compared to the Group 3. In static pupillary measurements, there were statistically significant differences between the GO group (Group 1 and 2) and Group 3 with regard to scotopic (p = 0.002), mesopic (p = 0.002), and low-photopic PD (p = 0.001).
Scotopic, mesopic and low photopic PD, latency of pupil contraction and velocity of pupil dilatation values were significantly different in both hyperthyroid and euthyroid GO patients when compared to healthy control subjects.
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