The association of wavefront aberration and accommodative lag in myopes

Accommodative lags, induced by a target at 33 cm (distance-induced condition) and by a -3.0 D lens (lens-induced condition), and wavefront aberrations were measured in 27 young myopic eyes. The accommodative lags and Strehl ratios derived from the wavefront aberrations in myopes were compared with those from 57 emmetropes. Accommodation was measured using a Canon R-1 autorefractor, while aberrations were measured using a psychophysical ray-tracing technique. In accord with previous results, larger accommodative lags were found for the myopes than the emmetropes in both the lens-induced and distance-induced conditions. The mean Strehl ratio was smaller in the myopes (0.079) than the emmetropes (0.091); this difference approached significance (p = 0.055). In addition, for myopes the accommodative lag was significantly correlated with the Strehl ratio in the lens-induced condition (r = -0.45, p < 0.02) and approached significance in the distance-induced condition (r = -0.35, p = 0.07). No significant correlations were found for emmetropes. Possible reasons to account for these results are discussed.