The Canine Ocular Motility Laboratory
(COMLAB)

In 1991, Dr. Robert Williams of the University of Tennessee, Memphis, contacted Dr. Dell'Osso after noting that members of a family of Belgian sheepdogs born without an optic chiasm had ocular oscillations. He sent a video of these movements to Dr. Dell'Osso for his opinion. The eye movements appeared to be the canine equivalent of childhood nystagmus (i.e., congenital nystagmus, or CN) with an additional nystagmus, see-saw nystagmus (SSN), superimposed. The only way to confirm that was to record the eye movements of these dogs. However, research of the literature found no mention of canine eye movements, neither the methodology needed nor their characteristics. During an initial visit to Memphis in 1992, Drs. Dell'Osso and Williams made preliminary eye-movement recordings and confirmed both the CN and SSN in the dogs with achiasma. In order to make more accurate eye-movement recordings, Drs. Dell'Osso, Williams and Jacobs (in 1995) designed and constructed the Canine Ocular Motility Laboratory (COMLAB), a semi-mobile facility that was based in Memphis for several years while this collaborative study was made. In 1997, as the study neared its conclusion, Dr. Dell'Osso enlisted the aid of Dr. Richard Hertle in performing a hypothetical surgery, four-muscle tenotomy, on the last remaining achiasmatic dog. The success of that surgery led to its successful use in humans for both CN and certain forms of acquired nystagmus.