Early and permanent effects of monocular deprivation on pattern discrimination and visuomotor behavior in cats

Visuomotor behavior and pattern discrimination were studied in a group of cats raised with one eye closed by eyelid suturing 7-10 days after birth. At the age of 8-10 months the animals were forced to use their deprived eye by reversal of eye closure (closing the normal eye and opening the deprived one). Visuomotor behavior and pattern discrimination were tested before as well as after reverse closure, to compare performances of the deprived eye with those of the non-deprived eye. In order to get optimal visuomotor experience, the animals were kept in large playrooms for at least 4h each day. Except for normal tactile placing responses, visually triggered extension responses and uncertain jumping, 2 years after reverse closure all other tests (visually guided reaching, visual cliff behavior, obstacle avoidance, tracking, jumping, and visual blink responses) still showed impairments; the optokinetic nystagmus was asymmetric. In contrast with this partial behavioral recovery, pattern discrimination in a simple nose-push training box requiring no complicated visuomotor coordination was found to be positive. Discriminations of gratings of different orientations, starting 4 weeks after reverse closure, appeared to be normal, in comparison with performance using the non-deprived eye of the same cats tested before reverse closure. Form discrimination was also found to be positive; some monocularly deprived cats required more trails than normal cats in upright vs. reversed solid triangles discrimination, but succeeding form problems were mastered within the same range as found in normal cats. Apparently behavioral defects after monocular deprivation are due to deficiencies in visuomotor control rather than in pattern identification.