TITLE:
Mesopic Visual Contrast Sensitivity in Patients with Major Depression
AUTHORS:
Renata M. T. B. L. Nogueira, Everton L. Espínola, Aline M. Lacerda, Natanael A. Santos
KEYWORDS:
Visual Perception; Contrast Sensitivity; Depression; Spatial Frequency; Psychophysics
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Depression,
Vol.2 No.4,
November
25,
2013
ABSTRACT: The present study evaluated the effects of major depression on visual contrast sensitivity (CS) at low mesopic luminance (.7 cd/m2 mean luminance), a condition that has been little explored in the literature. We measured spatial visual CS in 20 male volunteers aged 20 - 30 years, including 10 healthy individuals and 10 medicated individuals with major depression, to linear sine-wave gratings of .25, 1.0, and 4.0 cycles per degree (cpd) of visual angle using the psychophysical staircase method with forced choice. The average spatial visual CS in the depressed group was approximately 1.7 lower than the average spatial visual CS in the control group. However, the post hoc test showed significant differences only at the spatial frequencies of .25 and 1.0 cpd (p