How do eyes work together as a team?

How do eyes work together as a team? Videos

How Our Eyes Work Together for Clear Vision

Binocular Vision and Why Two Eyes Need to Work Together
Amplify EyeCare of Greater Long Beach
Dr. Eric Ikeda

What is binocular vision?
Amplify EyeCare Chattanooga
Dr. Heather McBryar

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The Teamwork of the Eyes

When it comes to vision, teamwork really makes the dream work. Both of your eyes need to be in sync to ensure you see the world clearly. The magic starts when each eye focuses on the exact same point in space. By doing so, they each capture a slightly different angle of the scene before you. It's similar to how two cameras might capture slightly different viewpoints of the same subject.

Muscle Coordination

The muscles around each eye are critical for achieving this focus. You have six eye muscles that act like puppet strings, pulling your eyes in the right directions. If these muscles aren't working in harmony, you could end up with a range of problems, like double vision or difficulties with depth perception.

The Brain

The real MVP behind the scenes is your brain. When each eye sends its "snapshot" via the optic nerve to your brain, the visual cortex gets to work. It combines these two images into one, adding depth and producing a three-dimensional picture. If the images from your eyes aren't aligned well, the picture your brain creates can be distorted or blurry.

When Teamwork Falls Apart

Unfortunately, sometimes this system doesn't work as it should. Conditions like strabismus, where the eyes are misaligned, or amblyopia, commonly known as lazy eye, can disrupt this teamwork. In the U.S., about 4% of the population has strabismus, and 2-3% of children are affected by amblyopia, according to the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. When the eyes can't focus on the same point, it creates a breakdown in the system, affecting how the brain processes visual information.

Convergence Insufficiency

There is a condition called convergence insufficiency which occurs when both eyes are supposed to come together to focus on a near target but the eyes are not coming together enough. For example, if someone with convergence insufficiency is trying to read a book, they won’t receive the most clear image possible because one eye might be pointing exactly on the target in the book, but the other eye might be pointing more outwards.
Using the camera metaphor, in convergence insufficiency, the cameras are not broken. There still is an image being received from the right camera and another image being received from the left camera. However, when these images go to the brain for processing, they do not perfectly overlap to cause the ideal clear picture and instead there is a misalignment between the images.

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Common Questions

Why Does My Child Only Complain That It Is Difficult To Read, But There Are No Complaints When He Or She Is Playing Video Games For Hours?

In convergence insufficiency, there is often a subtle mismatch between the images that the brain is receiving from each eye. This misalignment is profound when trying to read a small font on a page. However in contrast, the mismatch that occurs in convergence insufficiency is not so noticeable when looking at images which is the case of our example, when a child is playing video games. In addition, convergence insufficiency does not have a significant impact when looking at large print which is usually the case for very young children who mostly read using a big font. The complaints of difficulty due to convergence insufficiency is most common when trying to read fine print.

What is it called when both eyes work together?

When both eyes work together seamlessly, it's termed "binocular vision." Binocular vision allows us to merge the images from each eye into a single, three-dimensional image, giving us depth perception. For this harmonious collaboration to occur, the eye muscles and the brain must be in sync. If someone has trouble with their eyes working together, it may result in a binocular vision dysfunction.

Do both eyes work the same?

No, not necessarily. While ideally, both eyes should work in tandem to provide clear, binocular vision, it's not uncommon for one eye to have a different prescription or refractive error than the other. One eye might be nearsighted (myopic) while the other could be farsighted (hyperopic), or they might both have refractive errors of varying degrees. Additionally, conditions like amblyopia (lazy eye) can cause one eye to function less effectively than the other.

Summary

The coordination of both eyes is crucial for effective vision. When the eyes work together as a team, focusing on the same target, the brain processes clear images. Convergence insufficiency is a condition where the eyes do not come together sufficiently to focus on near objects, resulting in blurred or misaligned vision. In this condition, the images from each eye do not overlap perfectly in the brain, leading to a lack of clarity.