Cite as:
Musel B, Hera R, Chokron S, Alleysson D, Chiquet C, Romanet J P, Peyrin C, 2010, "Parvocellular pathway impairment in age-related macular degeneration: Evidence from high- and low-pass filtered scene categorization" Perception 39 ECVP Abstract Supplement, page 23

Parvocellular pathway impairment in age-related macular degeneration: Evidence from high- and low-pass filtered scene categorization

B Musel, R Hera, S Chokron, D Alleysson, C Chiquet, J P Romanet, C Peyrin

Blindness in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) results from the loss of central cones and rods due to damage originating in the retinal pigment epithelium. Due to the retinal anatomy, we expected that AMD affects more parvocellular (P) pathway originates from central cones/midget ganglion cells than magnocellular (M) pathway originates from peripheral rods/parasol ganglion cells. We investigate here the residual perception of AMD patient using ecological and complex natural scenes filtered in low and high spatial frequencies (LSF and HSF) to stimulate M and P pathways, respectively. AMD patients and healthy age-matched participants were tested mono-ocularly. Stimuli were black and white photographs of natural scenes, sized 32°×24° of visual angle. AMD patients made significantly more errors and were slower to categorize HSF than LSF scenes while healthy participants categorized HSF scenes as well as LSF scenes (for both accuracy and reaction times). Furthermore, AMD patients categorized LSF scenes as well as healthy participants, while they made significantly more errors and longer correct reaction times to categorize HSF scenes. The present findings highlight a specific deficit in HSF processing during natural scene perception, opening the prospect of a possible deficit of the P pathway in AMD patients.

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