Eye movements in idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder: High antisaccade error rate reflects prefrontal cortex dysfunction

• Published in: Journal of sleep research 2019-10, Vol.28 (5), p.e12742-n/a
• Main Authors: Hanuška, Jaromír, Rusz, Jan, Bezdicek, Ondrej, Ulmanová, Olga, Bonnet, Cecilia, Dušek, Petr, Ibarburu, Veronika, Nikolai, Tomáš, Sieger, Tomáš, Šonka, Karel, Růžička, Evžen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; eye movements; Eye Movements - physiology; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Parkinson Disease - physiopathology; Parkinson’s disease; Polysomnography - methods; Prefrontal Cortex - abnormalities; rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder - complications; REM Sleep Behavior Disorder - physiopathology; saccades; video‐oculography
• ISSN: 0962-1105; 1365-2869
• DOI: 10.1111/jsr.12742

Abnormalities of eye movements have been reported in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, it is unclear if they occur in the prodromal stage of synucleinopathy represented by idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD). We thus aimed to study eye movements in subjects with iRBD and in de novo PD, to assess if their abnormalities may serve as a clinical biomarker of neurodegeneration. Fifty subjects with polysomnography‐confirmed iRBD (46 male, age 40–79 years), 18 newly diagnosed, untreated PD patients (13 male, age 43–75 years) and 25 healthy controls (20 male, age 42–79 years) were prospectively enrolled. Horizontal and vertical ocular prosaccades and antisaccades were investigated with video‐oculography. All patients completed the MDS‐UPDRS and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. In addition, a neuropsychological battery was performed on iRBD subjects. When compared with healthy controls, both de novo PD patients and iRBD subjects showed increased error rates in the horizontal antisaccade task (p