Effect of orientation on spatiotemporal contrast sensitivity in multiple sclerosis

Spatiotemporal contrast sensitivity at three orientations, vertical, horizontal and oblique, was studied in 18 patients with clinically definite and laboratory-confirmed definite multiple sclerosis (MS). Nineteen age-matched control subjects were also studied under identical experimental conditions. Contrast thresholds for detecting steady and counterphase modulated (5 Hz) gratings ranging in spatial frequency from 0.5 to 12 c/deg were measured by a modified psychophysical method of limits. With the exception of two patients (three eyes) whose Snellen acuity scores were 20/70, all observers had acuity scores of 20/30 or better. All subjects were corrected for astigmatism. Orientation, spatial frequency and temporal frequency interacted differently in determining contrast sensitivity in the two groups of observers. For the controls, an oblique effect was present for both the steady and counterphase modulated gratings of high spatial frequencies, and there was no orientation-dependent loss of sensitivity for low spatial frequencies. For the observers with MS, there was no oblique effect, but sensitivity was dependent on orientation for the low spatial frequencies. Most patients with MS had reduced contrast sensitivity, compared to the controls, at one or more orientations. Counterphase modulation increased sensitivity to the low spatial frequencies and decreased sensitivity to the high spatial frequencies for both normal controls and patients with MS. In patients with MS this effect of temporal modulation on contrast sensitivity was markedly enhanced.