In Vivo Videography of the Rhesus Monkey Accommodative Apparatus

Abstract

Fourteen rhesus monkeys, aged 1 to 24 years, underwent permanent implantation of a bipolar stimulating electrode into the Edinger-Westphal nucleus and complete unilateral or bilateral iridectomy. Slit-lamp Scheimpflug videography of the lens and slit-lamp goniovideography of the lens equator, zonule, and ciliary body allowed direct real-time observation and video recording of the movements of these structures during centrally stimulated accommodation and during disaccommodation. Scalloping of the lens capsule at the zonular insertion sites was clearly visible during disaccommodation and even during accommodation when the zonules were folded. During accommodation, the lens became axially thicker, the ciliary ring narrowed, and, at high levels of accommodation, the zonular fibers slackened and even folded and the lens moved downward. With increasing age and concomitantly decreasing accommodative amplitude, these excursions all diminished, so that in the oldest animals, they were very minimal or absent. Maximum centrally stimulated accommodative amplitude declined with age on a time scale similar to that for cholinomimetic drug-induced accommodation in the rhesus monkey and voluntary accommodation in the human.