Topology of the near response triad

Abstract

The near response complex comprises three elements: accommodation, convergence, and pupillary constriction. The synkinesis between vergence and accommodation is well understood functionally, if not neuroanatomically. The latencies of near response components were measured in four healthy, experienced subjects to determine how the pupillary component is mediated. Addition of disparity stimulus to blur, yielding a near stimulus, reduces the latency of vergence eye movements and of accommodation by an amount that is significantly greater than the corresponding reduction in pupil latency. None of the existing hypotheses: vergence-pupil, accommodation-pupil or symmetric dual interaction, can account for this difference. Therefore, we present a new hypothesis: asymmetric dual interaction between accommodation and vergence.