Evoked potential estimates of visual acuity of siamese cats

It is known that the Siamese cat has a neurological anomaly of its visual system which results in temporal retinal fibers crossing at the optic chiasm instead of remaining ipsilateral as they do in normal cats. This results in a disruption of the normal retinotopic projection to both the lateral geniculate nucleus and the cortex. At the cortex, Siamese cats show a significant lack of binocularity compared to normal cats. Because of these abnormalities, the visual function of the Siamese cat may be different from normal cats. Electrophysiological methods were used in this study to obtain estimates of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity for the Siamese cat. Using established evoked potential techniques, it was determined that Siamese cats have lowered acuity and contrast sensitivity functions compared to normal cats.