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Data on geometric and material properties of the human lens derived from various published sources are used to construct axisymmetric, large displacement, finite element models of the accommodating lens of subjects aged 11, 29 and 45 years. The nucleus, cortex, capsule and zonule are modelled as linearly elastic materials. The numerical model of the 45-year lens is found to be significantly less effective in accommodating than the 29-year lens, suggesting that the modelling procedure is capable of capturing at least some of the features of presbyopia. The model of the 11-year lens shows some anomalous behaviour, and reasons for this are explored.

We recorded from neurons dorsal and dorsolateral to the third nerve nucleus of the monkey whose discharge rates modulated when the monkey tracked targets moving in depth but not when it tracked targets moving from side to side. The neurons' activity modulated equally well whether the target moved directly toward one eye or the other. For most neurons the amplitude of modulation was similar whether the monkey tracked monocularly (blur cue alone), binocularly with accommodation open-loop (disparity cue alone), or in normal binocular viewing. By comparing the modulation in normal binocular viewing with that when the blur and disparity cues were in conflict we were able to show that 19 neurons discharged in relation to the vergence response alone and not to accommodation. Eight neurons discharged exclusively in relation to accommodation. While the monkeys tracked targets moving in depth so that target vergence varied with a sinusoidal time course (frequency 0.1 or 0.2 Hz) the discharge modulations of identified vergence cells generally showed much more phase lead than expected of motoneurons. We examined the activity of a subset of these vergence cells in response to a range of stimulus frequencies to compare the dynamics of these neurons with motoneurons. The phase leads were larger than those expected of motoneurons over the entire frequency range tested. We speculate that vergence neurons may selectively activate (directly or indirectly) motoneurons with longer time constants than the mean.