Discharge responses of the optic tract to flash stimuli in Parkinson's disease.

ABSTRACT: Dopamine has a significant role in retinal processing, and it has been demonstrated that retinal dopamine content is decreased in parkinsonian patients. We measured the latency of the evoked discharges in the optic tract (OT) to flash stimuli during stereotactic pallidal neurosurgery in 25 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) (13 women and 12 men, age 38-78 years, unified Parkinson's disease rating scale (UPDRS) Motor Score in the Off state 11-54, Hoehn and Yahr stage in the Off state 1.5-5) and investigated the effects of age at surgery, disease duration, levodopa dose, and severity of parkinsonian symptoms on the latency. OT discharges were evoked by monocular flash stimuli delivered from a flashlight with a krypton bulb with a tungsten filament. The luminance at the eye measured ∼4 ×

SUBMITTER: Hashimoto T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4292747 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature