Temporal summation in dark-adapted 10-week old infants

The effect of stimulus duration on the b-wave and psychophysical responses of dark-adapted 10-week-old infants and adult control subjects is reported. Both infant and adult b-wave sensitivities vary with stimulus duration, show summation for brief duration stimuli, critical durations estimated at 88-155 msec, and little variation in sensitivity for longer durations. There are however, substantial differences between the infant and adult psychophysical temporal summation functions. The infant function is described by a straight line, slope about -0.5, across all flash durations while adults show summation at durations less than 100 msec and critical durations of 136 to 151 msec. Adult, but not infant, b-wave integration times and b-wave rise and fall times show duration-dependent changes. Thus, both ERG and psychophysical measures demonstrate immaturities in the rod mediated function of the infant retina.