Amblyopia resulting from penalisation: neurophysiological studies of kittens reared with atropinisation of one or both eyes.

Atropinisation of the eyes--a clinical method of treating strabismus called "penalisation"--in developing kittens caused a reduction in the spatial resolving power of cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus driven by the penalised eye, regardless of whether 1 eye or both eyes had been atropinised. However, binocularity of cells in the visual cortex was reduced only in monocularly penalised cats. It appears that sharply focused foveal images are important in the development of good visual acuity but synergy of the inputs to the 2 eyes is required for the development of binocular vision.