Quantitative analysis of eye movements in schizophrenia

Abstract

A voluminous literature exists on the eye movements of schizophrenic patients and suggests that there is a relationship between abnormal functioning of the smooth pursuit system and the psychopathology. However, a quantitative analysis of the pursuit or saccadic defect, respectively, is only seen in a few cases. In order to study and quantify dysfunction of the eye movements they were measured with infrared photoelectric techniques and analysed by a digital computer. The study included ten patients with a schizophrenic disorder (DSM-III criteria) and ten normal subjects. All patients were studied after an acute psychotic episode. The authors' results could demonstrate both a dysfunction of smooth pursuit which was related to a low smooth pursuit gain and an increase of small catch-up saccades, respectively, and dysmetric visually-induced reflexive sac-cades.

Key Words:

• eye movements
• schizophrenia
• saccades
• smooth pursuit