1) Intuitively, we implicitly assume that we can acquire the gist of a scene at a single glance, i.e., even in a short period before we have made any eye movements, but this is just an illusion. We explore the outer world by performing eye movements (usually saccades), and then fixating on objects alternately. What are gaze movements, and what can we learn from them? Finally, we argue that it is important to understand the functional significance and behavioral correlate of saccade abnormalities in daily life, which could require eye tracking methodologies to be performed in settings similar to daily life. We also discuss how interventions, such as deep brain stimulation, affect saccade performance and provide further insights into the workings of the oculomotor system in humans. In the current review, we provide an overview of studies in which we attempted to elucidate the patterns of saccade abnormalities in over 250 patients with neurological disorders, including cerebellar ataxia and brainstem pathology due to neurodegenerative disorders, and what they tell about the pathophysiology of patients with neurological disorders. The purpose of saccade studies is to “read out” the pathophysiology underlying neurological disorders from the saccade records, referring to known primate physiology.
Non-invasive and readily implemented in the clinical setting, eye movement studies have been conducted extensively not only in healthy human subjects but also in patients with neurological disorders.
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