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J. Timothy Diegel, MD
533 Medical Arts Bldg Minneapolis, MN 55402

Arch Neurol. 1980;37(6):399.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Furlan et al described in the ARCHIVES (36:675-676, 1979) five patients with carotid stenosis and ipsilateral decrease in retinal artery pressure who experience visual loss on exposure to bright light. The physiological mechanism suggested was that the retinal blood flow would not increase sufficiently to maintain the additional retinal metabolic needs. It seems to me that there are "scotomas" in the reasoning! First, the pupillary light reflex constricts the pupil, thus decreasing the amount of light entering the eye. The latent period of the light reflex to a bright light is about 0.2 s. Therefore, it does not seem that the entire retinal metabolism would increase so much as to cause total visual loss. There would, of course, be an afterimage central scotoma.

Second, how can the authors explain the pattern of visual loss in case 1? This was described as "blurring in the temporal aspect of his . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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