Eye Movements in Psychiatry

Abstract

In the last half century, a large body of research literature has concentrated on oculomotor function in psychiatric syndromes and especially schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The emerging picture from these studies is that specific deficits measured in specific oculomotor function tasks such as smooth eye pursuit, antisaccades and memory saccades are evident in patients with psychosis and probably to a lesser degree in their first degree relatives. Such oculomotor function deficits have helped develop a better understanding of the genetic and neurobiological substrate of psychiatric syndromes, bearing in mind that these functions have a complex genetic and neurobiological substrate that remains to be fully understood. Some of these functions such as visually guided and predictive saccades are sensitive to medication status and the natural course of psychiatric syndromes. This fact could potentially lead to the future development of oculomotor biological markers for treatment response and outcome predictions in these syndromes.