Eye problems associated with Nerve damage

Blanco R, Pérez-Rico C, Puertas-Muñoz I, Ayuso-Peralta L, Boquete L, Arévalo-Serrano J. Functional assessment of the visual pathway with multifocal visual evoked potentials, and their relationship with disability in patients with multiple sclerosis. Mult Scler. 2013 Jul 4. [Epub ahead of print]


OBJECTIVE:To objectively evaluate the visual function, and the relationship between disability and optic nerve dysfunction, in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and optic neuritis (ON), using multifocal visual evoked potentials (mfVEP).
METHODS:This observational, cross-sectional study assessed 28 consecutive patients with clinically definite MS, according to the McDonald criteria, and 19 age-matched healthy subjects. Disability was recorded using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score. The patients' mfVEP were compared to their clinical, psychophysical (Humphrey perimetry) and structural (optic coherence tomography (OCT)) diagnostic test data.
RESULTS:We observed a significant agreement between mfVEP amplitude and Humphrey perimetry/OCT in MS-ON eyes, and between mfVEP amplitude and OCT in MS but non-ON eyes. We found significant differences in EDSS score between patients with abnormal and normal mfVEP amplitudes. Abnormal mfVEP amplitude defects (from interocular and monocular probability analysis) were found in 67.9% and 73.7% of the MS-ON and MS-non-ON group eyes, respectively. Delayed mfVEP latencies (interocular and monocular probability analysis) were seen in 70.3% and 73.7% of the MS-ON and MS-non-ON groups, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS:We found a significant relationship between mfVEP amplitude and disease severity, as measured by EDSS score, that suggested there is a role for mfVEP amplitude as a functional biomarker of axonal loss in MS.

This study say if you have MS you have a higher chance of giving a non normal response where your nerve firing potential are examined , irrespective of whether you have had optic neuritis. The worse the disease severity the worse the response in the eye. We have seen a number of publications on this sort of aspect. Is it a marker of influences going on in the brain, sort of but sort of not. They are a marker of stuff going on in the eye.

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