Year: 2026
Type: editorial
Abstract: Earlier studies had reported no cueing effects in such patients and interpreted this as evidence that attention cannot be directed to a region of space the eyes cannot move to.Using a paradigm with multiple cue locations, a no-cue control condition, and both saccadic and keypress responses, the authors found that all five patients showed the expected pattern: faster responses to targets near the cue and slower responses to targets away from it. This was seen in both hemifields and with either eye viewing. The authors conclude that attention is altered rather than absent in paralytic strabismus and that the priority maps in premotor structures appear to operate independently of the effector. From a clinical standpoint, the findings caution against inferring a deficit in attention from a restriction in eye movement.Zhang et al. studied binocular colour rivalry in 16 healthy adults using simultaneous eye tracking and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Colour rivalry was associated with pupil dilation and increased prefrontal activation, a change in stimulus location was processed with less prefrontal involvement, and the combination of the two produced the strongest activation in BA10 and the widest variability in reaction time. Prefrontal oxyhaemoglobin was positively correlated with reaction time. These findings indicate that the prefrontal cortex is involved in resolving interocular conflict, and the oculomotor and haemodynamic measures described could be explored as markers in patients with suppression or unstable fusion.Li et al. evaluated 105 myopic patients with acute acquired comitant esotropia and 107 myopic controls. Prolonged near work without spectacle correction was reported by 98% of the patients compared with 13% of the controls, whereas routine spectacle wear did not differ between the groups. The authors classified the patients according to whether fusion could be maintained at the far point without correction. The compensatory group (88%) had larger deviations at distance than at near, a larger deviation on the Maddox rod than on the cover test, and near-orthophoria at the far point, consistent with an adaptation to excessive convergence demand. The non-compensatory group was younger, less myopic, had larger angles of deviation and poorer stereopsis. Two points from this work are of practical value: the cover test may underestimate the deviation in the compensatory group, and near work without correction is a modifiable risk factor.children with intermittent exotropia followed for 12 months. Motor success was similar between the two procedures (87.5% and 91.2%). The recession-resection group had better foveal stereopsis and binocular vision recovery, while the bilateral recession group showed greater improvement in sensory alignment on the synoptophore and a higher rate of early overcorrection. The study was retrospective and the groups differed at baseline, so these findings need to be confirmed in a randomized trial. The results nevertheless show that motor alignment and sensory recovery are separate outcomes.Several questions remain for future exploration. Ethnicity-specific normative data are required and should be related to symptoms and treatment outcomes. The attention and rivalry paradigms in this Topic were tested in small samples of patients with paralytic strabismus and in healthy adults, and further studies are required in comitant strabismus, amblyopia and non-strabismic binocular vision anomalies, including convergence insufficiency, to determine whether these neural measures have diagnostic or prognostic value. The far point classification of acute acquired comitant esotropia needs further validation with objective measurement of near work. Prospective randomized clinical trials are warranted to compare surgical techniques, with well-defined clinical outcome measures, long-term follow-up, and endpoints based on binocular vision parameters.We thank the authors for their contributions and the reviewers for their careful evaluation of each manuscript.
Source: Frontiers in Neuroscience
Institutions: Gulf Medical University, Universidad de Zaragoza
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7221762205