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type:Departmental Bulletin Paper, [Abstract] Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a leading cause of childhood blindness in the world. Appropriate eye screening and interventions, such as laser ablation and/or anti-vascular endothelial growth factor therapy, are useful to prevent blindness by ROP. However, some eyes are refractory to these treatments and develop tractional retinal detachment, which requires surgical intervention, such as vitrectomy and/or the scleral buckling procedure. When vitrectomy was introduced for ROP, it was initially performed at stage 5 (total retinal detachment). Vitrectomy for stage 5 ROP is beneficial to prevent total blindness in some eyes; however, its anatomical and functional results are disappointing. It is now well-established that vitrectomy, if possible lens-sparing vitrectomy, should be performed at stage 4A ROP (partial tractional retinal detachment not involving the macula) before the macula is affected. The anatomical and functional surgical results of vitrectomy for stage 4A ROP are better than those for stage 5 ROP.

Enhanced food-finding efficiency is an obvious adaptive response to cave environments. Here, we have compared the food-finding abilities of Astyanax surface fish and blind cavefish young larvae in their first month of life, in the dark. Our results show that enhanced prey capture skills of cavefish are already in effect in fry soon after the yolk is depleted and the young larvae must find food for themselves. Moreover, using prey capture competition assays on surface fish fry with lensectomies, we showed that eye-dependent developmental processes are not the main determinant for enhanced prey capture skills. Finally, using F2 hybrid larvae resulting from crosses between surface fish and cavefish, we found that reduced eyes do not confer a selective advantage for prey capture by fry in the dark. We discuss these data with regards to our current developmental and genetic understanding of cavefish morphological and behavioral evolution.