Cortical blindness

A 79-year-old woman with persistent cortical blindness caused by bilateral temporo-occipital infarctions was followed for 8 months. She had no light or visual motion perception. Our patient's visual imagery was intact, which was demonstrated when drawing elementary shapes; however, her drawing of objects was poor. Optokinetic nystagmus could not be elicited, but the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) seemed intact. Although she was able to suppress her VOR by 'fixating' her outstretched hand which moved in phase with her head and body, she showed saccadic tracking eye movements in an attempt to visually 'follow' the self-generated movements of her outstretched hand, while her body and head were stationary. Such saccadic tracking seemed to be different from the previously described smooth tracking of self-moved targets by patients with acquired blindness caused by anterior visual pathway dysfunction.