Microsaccade Activity During Visuospatial Working Memory in Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease.
Katherine Farber1, Linjing Jiang1,2, Mario Michiels3,4
1Integrative Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA.
Journal of Eye Movement Research
|October 28, 2025
Summary
Parkinson's disease (PD) affects microsaccades, or tiny eye movements, during memory tasks. Dopamine medication moderately increased microsaccade size in PD patients, but basic eye movement patterns remained similar to controls.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Ophthalmology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Fixational saccadic eye movements (microsaccades) are linked to cognitive functions like spatial attention and memory.
- Parkinson's disease (PD) often involves impaired oculomotor and cognitive control, but its effect on microsaccades is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of dopamine modulation on microsaccade activity in early-stage Parkinson's disease during a spatial working memory task.
- To compare microsaccade characteristics between individuals with PD and healthy controls.
Main Methods:
- Acquired eye movement data from 16 early-stage PD participants and 13 healthy older controls.
- Analyzed microsaccade characteristics (amplitude, duration, amplitude-velocity relationship, rate, direction) during the delay period of a spatial working memory task.
- Examined effects of dopaminergic medication status ('on' vs. 'off') in PD participants.
Main Results:
- Microsaccade amplitude and duration were moderately larger in PD participants (on or off medication) compared to controls.
- PD participants showed a linear amplitude-velocity relationship for microsaccades, similar to controls.
- Both groups exhibited similar microsaccade rate patterns and a horizontal directional bias during the memory task's delay period.
Conclusions:
- Microsaccades appear minimally involved in visuospatial working memory maintenance without explicit attentional cues in both PD patients and controls.
- Dopamine deficiency in PD has moderate effects on microsaccade size during working memory maintenance.
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