Abstract
Data on saccadic latency in patients with Spinocerebellar Ataxia 2 (SCA2) are sparse
and contradictory. In order to determine whether saccadic latency is definitely prolonged,
identify its possible determinants and evaluate it as disease biomarker we assessed
the saccadic latency by electronystagmography in 110 SCA2 patients and their paired
controls. Mean saccadic latencies were significantly longer in patients when compared
to controls for all tested target displacements. Forty-six percent of SCA2 patients
had saccadic latencies above the normal range. Reciprobit plots of saccadic latency
demonstrated a skewed distribution in the direction of longer latencies for the patients
compared to controls. As saccadic latency increased, the velocity and amplitude of
saccades significantly decreased in SCA2 subjects but not in controls. Saccadic latency
was not influenced by any demographical, clinical or molecular SCA2 variables, but
it showed a significant correlation with the performance of the Stroop test, the verbal
fluency test and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in SCA2 patients. This paper demonstrated
that saccadic latency is prolonged in SCA2 patients and it significantly correlates
with the performance of frontal-executive functions, thus this parameter could be
a useful biomarker to evaluate the efficiency of future therapeutical options on these
dysfunctions.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 11, 2011
Accepted:
March 21,
2011
Received in revised form:
March 21,
2011
Received:
November 5,
2010
Identification
Copyright
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
