Disturbances of voluntary control of saccadic eye movements in schizophrenic patients

• Published in: Biological psychiatry (1969) Vol. 23; no. 7; pp. 670 - 677
• Main Authors: Fukushima, Junko, Fukushima, Kikuro, Chiba, Tatsuo, Tanaka, Satoshi, Yamashita, Itaru, Kato, Masamichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.04.1988; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Eye Movements; Female; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Miscellaneous; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reaction Time; Saccades; Schizophrenia, Paranoid - psychology; Schizophrenic Psychology; Techniques and methods; Human; Psychosis; Voluntary control; Central nervous system; Schizophrenia; Frontal cortex; Saccadic eye movement
• ISSN: 0006-3223; 1873-2402
• DOI: 10.1016/0006-3223(88)90050-9

To study whether or not schizophrenic patients have disturbances in voluntary control of saccades, we examined visually elicited saccade and antisaccade tasks in 10 normal control subjects and 12 schizophrenic patients. The latencies of saccades in the schizo- phrenic patients were not significantly different from those of normal controls. However, 6 of the 12 schizophrenics showed significant abnormalities in the antisaccade task: 6 made more errors and 3 of them showed longer latencies than normal controls. Five of these 6 patients revealed an atrophy of the frontal cortex on computed tomography (CT) scans. These results indicate that many schizophrenics show difficulties in voluntary control of saccades, suggesting a dysfunction of the frontal cortex.