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Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system

Visual functions decline with age, but how aging degrades visual functions remains controversial. In the current study, the mechanisms underlying age-related visual declines were examined psychophysically. We developed an efficient method to quickly explore contrast sensitivity as a function of nine...

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Autores principales: Yan, Fang-Fang, Hou, Fang, Lu, Hongyu, Yang, Jia, Chen, Lijun, Wu, Yifan, Chen, Ge, Huang, Chang-Bing
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7174411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32317655
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63053-0
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author Yan, Fang-Fang
Hou, Fang
Lu, Hongyu
Yang, Jia
Chen, Lijun
Wu, Yifan
Chen, Ge
Huang, Chang-Bing
author_facet Yan, Fang-Fang
Hou, Fang
Lu, Hongyu
Yang, Jia
Chen, Lijun
Wu, Yifan
Chen, Ge
Huang, Chang-Bing
author_sort Yan, Fang-Fang
collection PubMed
description Visual functions decline with age, but how aging degrades visual functions remains controversial. In the current study, the mechanisms underlying age-related visual declines were examined psychophysically. We developed an efficient method to quickly explore contrast sensitivity as a function of nine spatial frequencies at three levels of external noise in both young and old subjects. Fifty-two young and twenty-six old subjects have been screened for ophthalmological and mental diseases and participated in the experiment. Contrast sensitivity varied significantly with spatial frequency, age, and level of external noise. By adopting a nonlinear observer model, we decomposed contrast sensitivity into inefficiencies in internal additive noise, internal multiplicative noise, perceptual template gain, and/or system non-linearity. Model analysis revealed that aging impacts both internal additive noise and perceptual template gain, and such age-related degradation is tuned to spatial frequency, which is also a good predictor to discriminate old from young. The quick characterization of contrast sensitivity functions at different noise levels and the accompanying analysis developed in the current study may have profound application in other clinical populations.
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spelling pubmed-71744112020-04-24 Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system Yan, Fang-Fang Hou, Fang Lu, Hongyu Yang, Jia Chen, Lijun Wu, Yifan Chen, Ge Huang, Chang-Bing Sci Rep Article Visual functions decline with age, but how aging degrades visual functions remains controversial. In the current study, the mechanisms underlying age-related visual declines were examined psychophysically. We developed an efficient method to quickly explore contrast sensitivity as a function of nine spatial frequencies at three levels of external noise in both young and old subjects. Fifty-two young and twenty-six old subjects have been screened for ophthalmological and mental diseases and participated in the experiment. Contrast sensitivity varied significantly with spatial frequency, age, and level of external noise. By adopting a nonlinear observer model, we decomposed contrast sensitivity into inefficiencies in internal additive noise, internal multiplicative noise, perceptual template gain, and/or system non-linearity. Model analysis revealed that aging impacts both internal additive noise and perceptual template gain, and such age-related degradation is tuned to spatial frequency, which is also a good predictor to discriminate old from young. The quick characterization of contrast sensitivity functions at different noise levels and the accompanying analysis developed in the current study may have profound application in other clinical populations. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-04-21 /pmc/articles/PMC7174411/ /pubmed/32317655 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63053-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Yan, Fang-Fang
Hou, Fang
Lu, Hongyu
Yang, Jia
Chen, Lijun
Wu, Yifan
Chen, Ge
Huang, Chang-Bing
Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title_full Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title_fullStr Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title_full_unstemmed Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title_short Aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
title_sort aging affects gain and internal noise in the visual system
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7174411/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32317655
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63053-0
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