Comparison of Horizontal, Vertical and Diagonal Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements in Normal Human Subjects

AbstractWe compared horizontal and vertical smooth pursuit eye movements in five healthy human subjects. When maintenance of pursuit was tested using predictable waveforms (sinusoidal or triangular target motion), the gain of horizontal pursuit was greater, in all subjects, than that of vertical pursuit; this was also the case for the horizontal and vertical components of diagonal and circular tracking. When initiation of pursuit was tested, four subjects tended to show larger eye accelerations for vertical as opposed to horizontal pursuit; this trend became a consistent finding during diagonal tracking. These findings support the view that different mechanisms govern the onset of smooth pursuit, and its subsequent maintenance when the target moves in a predictable waveform. Since the properties of these two aspects of pursuit differ for horizontal and vertical movements, our findings also point to separate control of horizontal and vertical pursuit. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Visual–vestibular interaction in progressive supranuclear palsy

AbstractWe measured the stability of gaze during horizontal head rotations at 1–3 Hz in four patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), while they viewed a stationary target. Median gain of compensatory eye movements was 0.94, similar to control subjects. During rotation in darkness, median gain of vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) was 0.88, similar to controls. Conversely, the median gain of smooth-pursuit eye movements at 1.0 Hz was 0.23, lower than controls. A simple superposition model of smooth pursuit and the VOR could not account for the observed gaze stability during fixation. Our results are further evidence that a visually mediated mechanism, independent of smooth pursuit, optimizes eye movements to compensate for head rotations