Symmetries in peripheral ocular aberrations

A mirror symmetry in the aberrations between the left and right eyes has previously been found foveally, but while a similar symmetry for the peripheral visual field is likely, it has not been investigated. Nevertheless, the peripheral optical quality is often evaluated in only one eye, because it is more time efficient than analyzing the whole visual field of both eyes. This study investigates the correctness of such an approach by measuring the peripheral wavefront aberrations in both eyes of 22 subjects out to 40 horizontally. The largest aberrations (defocus, astigmatism, and coma) were found to be significantly correlated between the left and right eyes when comparing the same temporal or nasal angle. The slope of the regression line was close to 1 (within 0.05) for these aberrations, with a negative slope for the horizontally odd aberrations, i.e. the left and right eyes are mirror symmetric. These findings justify that the average result, sampled in one of the two eyes of many subjects, can be generalized to the other eye as well.