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Pallidal deep brain stimulation influences both reflexive and voluntary saccades in Huntington's disease.

Abstract
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the globus pallidus internus (GPi) is being evaluated as a potential new therapy for patients with Huntington's disease (HD). In addition to skeletal movement disorders, HD patients have difficulty initiating voluntary saccades and have difficulty in suppressing rapid saccades toward newly appearing stimuli. We measured several saccade parameters in an HD patient who had marked improvement of clinical symptoms with bilateral GPi DBS to determine whether oculomotor performance improved in parallel with clinical scores. Oculomotor performance was assessed using three testing paradigms: pro-saccades, anti-saccades, and memory-guided saccades. The data from the HD patient was also compared to that of two healthy controls. Pallidal DBS decreased pro-saccade latency, total movement time, and the number of correctly executed trials, as well as increasing saccade gain. Memory-saccade performance was negatively affected with stimulation: saccade gain decreased, latency increased, and the patient's ability to suppress unwanted saccades decreased with stimulation. Our data demonstrate a task-specific improvement of oculomotor deficits in this HD patient with pallidal DBS, supporting a role of GPi in oculomotor control.
AuthorsAdrian P Fawcett, Elena Moro, Anthony E Lang, Andres M Lozano, William D Hutchison
JournalMovement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society (Mov Disord) Vol. 20 Issue 3 Pg. 371-7 (Mar 2005) ISSN: 0885-3185 [Print] United States
PMID15580556 (Publication Type: Case Reports, Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
Copyright(c) 2004 Movement Disorder Society.
Topics
  • Adult
  • Basal Ganglia (physiopathology)
  • Deep Brain Stimulation (instrumentation)
  • Functional Laterality (physiology)
  • Globus Pallidus (physiology, surgery)
  • Humans
  • Huntington Disease (diagnosis, physiopathology, surgery)
  • Male
  • Neurosurgical Procedures (methods)
  • Oculomotor Nerve (physiopathology)
  • Saccades (physiology)
  • Time Factors

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