Using Saccadometry with Deep Brain Stimulation to Study Normal and Pathological Brain Function

Summary

This paper describes the use of quantitative measurement of eye movements in conjunction with stimulation of focal areas of the deep brain in order to study physiology, pathophysiology, and the mechanisms of deep brain stimulation.

Abstract

The oculomotor system involves a large number of brain areas including parts of the basal ganglia, and various neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's and Huntington's can disrupt it. People with Parkinson's disease, for example, tend to have increased saccadic latencies. Consequently, the quantitative measurement of saccadic eye movements has received considerable attention as a potential biomarker for neurodegenerative conditions. A lot more can be learned about the brain in both health and disease by observing what happens to eye movements when the function of specific brain areas is perturbed. Deep brain stimulation is a surgical intervention used for the management of a range of neurological conditions including Parkinson's disease, in which stimulating electrodes are placed in specific brain areas including several sites in the basal ganglia. Eye movement measurements can then be made with the stimulator systems both off and on and the results compared. With suitable experimental design, this approach can be used to study the pathophysiology of the disease being treated, the mechanism by which DBS exerts it beneficial effects, and even aspects of normal neurophysiology.

Introduction

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the use of measurements of reaction times as a quantitative and non-invasive way of gaining information about the high level mechanisms of neural decision making ¹. One type of reaction time that has been studied extensively is the time taken to initiate a saccade on presentation of a visual stimulus, known as saccadic latency. Saccades are the fast eye movements that occur when we rapidly shift our gaze from one place to another. They are the commonest type of eye movements we make, occurring at a frequency of typically two or three per second. Each saccade is in effect a decision to look at one cue in ....

Protocol

The local ethics committee approved this study and informed consented was obtained from the participants as detailed below in section 1.

1. Participant Consent

1. Provide participants with an information sheet that explains in detail what the testing session will include.
2. After the participants have the opportunity to read and discuss any questions, concerns or other matters related to their taking part in the study, go through the consent form with them, explaining each point on the consent form and giving them the opportunity to ask any questions they might have. Ask the participant to complete the form.

Results

Figure 3 shows an example of saccadic eye movement trajectories, from a Parkinson's disease patient with a subthalamic nucleus DBS system implanted. The two graphs plot the patient's prosaccades with the stimulator system switched off (upper graph) and switched on (lower graph). Each trace on the graphs shows the trajectory of a single saccade, i.e., how the eye position in degrees away from the midline (y axis) varies as a function of time (x axis). Both leftwar.......

Discussion

The most critical factor in obtaining good quality saccadic data is ensuring that the instructions given to the participant are clear and precise. For example, if the instructions for the antisaccadic task are not completely clear, the participant is likely to execute prosaccades instead. Recordings may also be spoiled if the participant cannot clearly see the stimuli or the saccadometer cannot accurately gauge eye position. Thus if the data appear to be of low quality the experimenter should check that the ambient light.......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Saccadometer device	Ober Consulting Poland
Computer with Windows environment
Software, Latency Meter for downloading the raw data from the saccadometer