Smooth-pursuit eye-movement dysfunction and motor control in schizophrenia: a follow-up study

Smooth-pursuit eye-tracking data of 63 schizophrenic patients and 52 normal controls are presented and compared with data collected on the same subjects 2 years earlier. Despite considerable clinical stabilization of the patients the overall eye-tracking performance did not improve. Intrasubject stability over 2 years was moderate. Eye-tracking impairment was significantly correlated with number of psychomotor soft signs and with number of errors in an antisaccade task. The correlations indicate that impairment of smooth-pursuit eye movements is likely to be a consequence of deficient motor control.