Vestibular and optokinetic responses were recorded in three albino subjects with congenital nystagmus. Although an ice-water caloric stimulus did not elicit nystagmus, all patients showed a response to rotational stimuli containing high frequency components. Vestibular responses to a constant velocity rotation decremented with abnormally short time constants of 1-2 sec (normal 15-20 sec). For s...

Endogenous norepinephrine was quantitatively measured in cochlear tissues of pigmented and nonpigmented animals by high-performance liquid chromatography and electrochemical detection. Epinephrine, dopamine and serotonin were not detected. The cochlear norepinephrine content of the pigmented animals was found to be more than double that present in corresponding albinos. Cochlear norepinephrine ...

Vestibular and optokinetic responses were recorded in three albino subjects with congenital nystagmus. Although an ice-water caloric stimulus did not elicit nystagmus, all patients showed a response to rotational stimuli containing high frequency components. Vestibular responses to a constant velocity rotation decremented with abnormally short time constants of 1-2 sec (normal 15-20 sec). For s...

Albino ferrets contrary to their pigmented conspecifics show no optokinetic nystagmus. Therefore, in this study motion perception was compared between pigmented and albino ferrets (Mustela putorius furo) trained to discriminate between coherently moving random dot patterns and dynamic noise stimuli in a two-alternative forced choice task. Fully coherently versus incoherently moving patterns cou...

Skin pigmentation was measured by reflectance spectrophotometry in 43 albinos, 44 of their relatives, and 123 random controls among Swazi subjects in southern Africa. Mean reflectance of the subject groups diminishes in the sequence affected subjects, obligate heterozygotes, other unaffected family members, random subjects, and the differences among the unaffected groups are highly significant....