Characteristics of memory-guided saccade in Parkinson' s disease / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate characteristics of memory-guided saccade in Parkinson' s disease (PD),and to evaluate the application of memory-guided saccade in diagnosing PD.Methods Fiftythree subjects with early- or mid- stage PD were chosen as PD group,meanwhile,36 age-matched healthy subjects were chosen as control group.Memory-guided saccade test and event-related potential P300 were performed in all subjects,and results of the two groups were compared; furthermore,results of subgroups comprised of 29 patients with early-stage PD were analyzed.Results In comparison with control group,memory-guided saccade in PD group showed decreased velocity and primary gain,prolonged latency,extremely increased incidence of unwanted saccade and multi-step saccade ( U =124.000,37.000;both P ＜0.01 ),such abnormalities has already stood out even in subgroup comprised of early-stage PD patients.Meanwhile,latency of event-related potential P300 in PD group was prolonged compared with control group ((384.76 ± 34.48) ms vs (352.42 ± 24.99) ms,t =- 4.791,P ＜ 0.01 ).Multi-step saccade measurement demonstrated excellent sensitivity (96.2％ ) and specificity (94.4％) in the ability to discriminate PD patients from controls.Conclusion Memory-guided saccade in PD patients shows highly abnormal which may reflect the impairment of pontine saccade pathway and the dysfunction of frontal lobe.Memory-guided saccade test may be a useful examination in assisting the diagnosis of PD.