Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute to Illuminate Adaptive Strategies in Vision Impairment at IMRF Symposium

June 16th, 2024

Reno, NV – June 3, 2024 – The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute played a key role at this year’s International Multisensory Research Forum (IMRF) in Reno, Nevada, beginning June 17, 2024. An all-SKERI symposium “Shifting Sensory Reliance: Adaptive Strategies in Vision Impairment and Blindness,” organized by Drs Catherine Agathos and Haydée Garcia-Lazaro (both postdoctoral fellows at SKERI), delved into the many ways individuals with partial or total vision loss compensate for deficits in visual processing and perception.

This symposium addressed a spectrum of visual impairments, from loss of stereopsis and central visual field loss to complete blindness, with a special focus on age-related changes. As older adults often exhibit deficits in multisensory integration while increasingly relying on multimodal information for accurate perception, these insights are particularly significant.

Speakers from Smith-Kettlewell highlighted how individuals leverage spared vision, cross-modal plasticity, and perceptual learning to enhance their functional abilities. Key presentations included:

• Adrien Chopin will explore the differential impacts of stereopsis loss across age groups in his presentation, “Does losing stereoscopic vision matter? Age-related differences in cue-combination compensation.” Chopin’s research suggests that older adults rely more heavily on stereoscopic depth cues than younger adults.
• Catherine Agathos will discuss “Changes in sensory reweighting in age-related central visual field loss,” focusing on how these changes relate to fall risk among older adults.
• Jade Guenot will present on the efficacy of combined electrical brain stimulation and perceptual learning in improving sensory integration for those with central visual field loss.
• Santani Teng will showcase “Integrating across hands in bimanual braille reading,” providing insights into how Braille reading patterns in blind individuals correlate with reading expertise and efficiency. Additionally, Teng will demonstrate the neural mechanisms enabling expert blind echolocators to rapidly integrate echo cues for localization.
• Haydée Garcia-Lazaro will delve into the Neural dynamics of human click-based echolocation, shedding light on this remarkable compensatory strategy.

This collection of studies underscores the brain’s remarkable adaptability and its ability to creatively employ various compensation techniques following vision loss. The techniques range from leveraging spared vision and sensory substitution to enhancing perception via alternative modalities such as hearing and touch, and honing perceptual expertise through extensive training.

The symposium culminated in a panel discussion with all speakers, providing an opportunity for deeper engagement and exploration of these adaptive strategies. These insights have profound implications for developing customized interventions to enhance functional abilities and quality of life for individuals with varying degrees of visual impairment.

Additional presentations included a talk by Christian Sinnott where he discussed how “Noise exposure and noise-induced hearing loss predicts visual dependence in the rod-and-frame task” and two poster presentations:

•  “Vestibular Damage due to Noise Exposure Leads to Significant Sensory Adaptations During Quiet Stance” by Natela Shanidze, Catherine Agathos, & Anca Velisar
• “The Effect of Plantar Cutaneous Afferents on Visual Field Dependence in Older Adults” by Pierre-Olivier Morin, Christine Assaiante, Angelo Arleo, & Catherine Agathos

Dr. Lora Likova, a Senior Scientist at SKERI, is a member of the IMRF 2024 Scientific Committee.