Oculomotor disturbances and VER findings in patients with early monocular loss of vision.

Visually evoked potentials (VER) were studied in 16 patients over 3 months of age with congenital or very early loss of vision in one eye. Seven patients (group I) developed an oculomotor syndrome in the sound eye characterized by jerky nystagmus in abduction, adduction fixation preference, and head-turn toward the side of the fixating eye. The other nine patients (group II) failed to develop the above-described syndrome. In group I, VER response asymmetry was found in six cases, with crossed predominance in four and direct predominance in two. The 7th patient showed a symmetric response. In group II, eight of the nine patients showed symmetric VER responses, and one showed asymmetric response with crossed predominance. Recorded VER asymmetries seem to correlate with oculomotor disturbances.