Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements and Voluntary Control of Saccades in the Antisaccade Task in Schizophrenic Patients

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that a saccade control dysfunction is one cause of a smooth pursuit eye movement (SPEM) dysfunction in schizophrenia. We studied the voluntary control of saccades in schizophrenic patients with the SPEM dysfunction using an antisaccade task. The mean error rate in the antisaccade task was significantly higher in the two schizophrenic groups with and without a SPEM dysfunction than in the normal control group. Furthermore, the schizophrenic group with the SPEM dysfunction showed significantly more errors than the schizophrenic group without the SPEM dysfunction. These findings seem to suggest a close relationship between the SPEM dysfunction and the appearance of errors which indicates an inability to inhibit reflexive saccades voluntarily in the antisaccade task. However, 4 of 10 subjects with the SPEM dysfunction showed an error rate less than the mean error rate of the schizophrenic group without the SPEM dysfunction. So, a voluntary control disorder of saccades as the main cause of the SPEM dysfunction appeared to be unlikely. An interesting finding of this study was that many schizophrenic subjects with the SPEM dysfunction showed errors with the latencies similar to those in express saccades, particularly in the rightward direction. This finding may suggest a close relationship between the SPEM dysfunction in schizophrenic patients and some pathological conditions of express saccades such as disinhibition of express saccades.