Selective Colour Vision Deficits in Multiple Sclerosis at Different Temporal Stages

Neda Anssari; Reza Vosoughi; Kathy Mullen; Behzad Mansouri

doi:10.1080/01658107.2019.1615960

Selective Colour Vision Deficits in Multiple Sclerosis at Different Temporal Stages

Neuroophthalmology. 2019 Jun 19;44(1):16-23. doi: 10.1080/01658107.2019.1615960. eCollection 2020 Feb.

Authors

Neda Anssari¹, Reza Vosoughi², Kathy Mullen³, Behzad Mansouri²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
² Section of Neurology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
³ Department of Ophthlmology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) without optic neuritis causes color-vision deficit but the evidence for selective color deficits in parvocellular-Red/Green (PC-RG) and koniocellular-Blue/Yellow (KC-BY) pathways is inconclusive. We investigated selective color-vision deficits at different MS stages. Thirty-one MS and twenty normal participants were tested for achromatic, red-green and blue-yellow sinewave-gratings (0.5 and 2 cycles-per-degree (cpd)) contrast orientation discrimination threshold. Red-green mean threshold at 0.5cpd in established-MS and blue-yellow mean threshold in all MS participants were abnormal. These findings show blue-yellow versus red-green color test is useful in differentiating MS chronicity, which helps to better understand the mechanism of colour-vision involvement in MS.

Keywords: Multiple sclerosis; blue/yellow; colour vision; psychophysics; red/green.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Manitoba Medical Services Foundation [8-2013-10].