Can Misalignments in Typical Infants Be Used as a Model for Infantile Esotropia?

What is it about?

We studied the intermittent periods of crossed eyes that sometimes occured in babies as they looked at monocular or binocular pictures moving backwards and forwards in space. Crossed eyes were more frequent as they looked into the distance after they had just looked at a close target, and were less frequent with both eyes open. There seems to be a bias to moving the eyes inwards at first which seemed to be somewhat overcome with both eyes open. We speculated that this may relate to other asymmetries in motion detection found in infants, which persist in infants who develop a squint.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

This adds to other evidence of asymmetry in motion detection in very young infants. It helps explain why, if normal binocular vision does not develop, infants may develop convergent squints (strabismus)