Ocular motor syndromes of the brainstem and cerebellum

Current Opinion in Neurology

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 22-28

  Tilikete, Caroline ^a,b,c,d,e   Pélisson, Denis ^a,b,c,d  

^a INSERM   (France)

^b UNIVERSITÉ LYON 1   (France)

^c Institut Federatif des Neurosciences de Lyon   (France)

^d University Paris Descartes   (France)

^e UMR S864   (France)

Author keywords

Adaptation; Eye movements; Nystagmus

Indexed keywords

BACLOFEN;

ADAPTATION; BRAIN STEM; CEREBELLUM; CLINICAL PRACTICE; CLINICAL RESEARCH; EYE MOVEMENT; EYE MOVEMENT DISORDER; HEAD; HUMAN; NERVE CELL; NONHUMAN; NYSTAGMUS; OPTOKINETIC NYSTAGMUS; OSCILLATION; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; REM SLEEP; REVIEW; SACCADIC EYE MOVEMENT; TREMOR;

EID: 37849013376     PISSN: 13507540     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1097/WCO.0b013e3282f4097d     Document Type: Review

References (70)

1. Choi KD, Oh SY, Park SH, et al. Head-shaking nystagmus in lateral medullary infarction: patterns and possible mechanisms. Neurology 2007; 68:1337-1344. The occurrence of HSN in central vestibular disorders has been revisited in patients with Wallenberg syndrome. Central HSN is frequent especially when the lesion involves the caudal and middle part of vestibular nuclei and spares the rostral part.
2. Shoman N, Longridge N. Cerebellar vermis lesions and tumours of the fourth ventricle in patients with positional and positioning vertigo and nystagmus. J Laryngol Otol 2007; 121:166-169.
3. Bertholon P, Tringali S, Faye MB, et al. Prospective study of positional nystagmus in 100 consecutive patients. Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol 2006; 115:587-594. A review of 100 patients with positional nystagmus, 12 of them disclosing central positional nystagmus. The clinical aspect of central forms of positional nystagmus is detailed.
4. Son EJ, Bang JH, Kang JG. Anterior inferior cerebellar artery infarction presenting with sudden hearing loss and vertigo. Laryngoscope 2007; 117:556-558.
5. Jeong HS, Oh JY, Kim JS, et al. Periodic alternating nystagmus in isolated nodular infarction. Neurology 2007; 68:956-957. This case report with focal lesion emphasizes the specificity of nodular lesion in PAN.
6. Oh YM, Choi KD, Oh SY, Kim JS. Periodic alternating nystagmus with circumscribed nodular lesion. Neurology 2006; 67:399.
7. Bense S, Best C, Buchholz HG, et al. 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose hypometabolism in cerebellar tonsil and flocculus in downbeat nystagmus. Neuroreport 2006; 17:599-603. The theory of floccular deficiency in DBN is reinforced by the demonstration of bilateral hypometabolism in one patient with DBN, and improvement of both nystagmus and hypometabolism with 4-aminopyridine treatment.
8. Kalla R, Deutschlander A, Hufner K, et al. Detection of floccular hypometabolism in downbeat nystagmus by fMRI. Neurology 2006; 66:281-283.
9. Anagnostou E, Mandellos D, Limbitaki G, et al. Positional nystagmus and vertigo due to a solitary brachium conjunctivum plaque. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2006; 77:790-792. This is a report of a patient with positional DBN with a tiny lesion, clearly restricted to the brachium conjunctivum.
10. Helmchen C, Gottschalk S, Sander T, et al. Beneficial effects of 3,4-diaminopyridine on positioning downbeat nystagmus in a circumscribed uvulonodular lesion. J Neurol 2007; 254:1126-1128. 3,4-Diaminopyridine may be efficient in positioning DBN.
11. Sprenger A, Rambold H, Sander T, et al. Treatment of the gravity dependence of downbeat nystagmus with 3,4-diaminopyridine. Neurology 2006; 67:905-907.
12. Prasad S, Brown MJ, Galetta SL. Transient downbeat nystagmus from West Nile virus encephalomyelitis. Neurology 2006; 66:1599-1600.
13. Korff C, Peter M, Burkhard PR. Downbeat nystagmus as a manifestation of intrathecal morphine toxicity. Eur J Anaesthesiol 2007; 24:201-202.
14. Thakore NJ, Pioro EP, Rucker JC, Leigh RJ. Motor neuronopathy with dropped hands and downbeat nystagmus: a distinctive disorder? A case report. BMC Neurol 2006; 6:3.
15. Cha Y, Lee H, Jen JC, et al. Episodic vertical oscillopsia with progressive gait ataxia: clinical description of a new episodic syndrome and evidence of linkage to chromosome 13q. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2007; 78:1273-1275. Episodic oscillopsia versus episodic ataxia? A common entity?
16. Alstadhaug KB, Salvesen R. Unusual triad due to a bilateral medial medullary infarction in a 35-year-old man. Eur J Neurol 2007; 14:e8-e9.
17. Pierrot-Deseilligny C, Richeh W, Bolgert F. Upbeat nystagmus due to a caudal medullary lesion and influenced by gravity. J Neurol 2007; 254: 120-121. This is an interesting case report showing that PPUN disappears as soon as the head is off-vertical.
18. Vulliemoz S, Vanini G, Truffert A, et al. Epilepsy and cerebellar ataxia associated with antiglutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2007; 78:187-189.
19. Kim JS, Moon SY, Choi KD, et al. Patterns of ocular oscillation in oculopalatal tremor: imaging correlations. Neurology 2007; 68:1128-1135. This important study investigates the pattern of ocular oscillations, and its relationship with the palatal tremor and MRI hypersignal in 22 patients with OPT.
20. Yakushiji Y, Otsubo R, Hayashi T, et al. Glucose utilization in the inferior cerebellar vermis and ocular myoclonus. Neurology 2006; 67:131-133.
21. Faulstich M, Van Alphen AM, Luo C, et al. Oculomotor plasticity during vestibular compensation does not depend on cerebellar LTD. J Neurophysiol 2006; 96:1187-1195.
22. Kimpo RR, Raymond JL. Impaired motor learning in the vestibulo-ocular reflex in mice with multiple climbing fiber input to cerebellar Purkinje cells. J Neurosci 2007; 27:5672-5682.
23. Saxon DW, White G. Episodic vestibular disruption following ablation of the inferior olive in rats: behavioral correlates. Behav Brain Res 2006; 175:128-138.
24. Beck JC, Rothnie P, Straka H, et al. Precerebellar hindbrain neurons encoding eye velocity during vestibular and optokinetic behavior in the goldfish. J Neurophysiol 2006; 96:1370-1382.
25. Marti S, Bockisch CJ, Straumann D. Asymmetric short-term adaptation of the vertical vestibulo-ocular reflex in humans. Exp Brain Res 2006; 172:343-350. This study nicely demonstrates that symmetrical stimulation induces asymmetrical vertical VOR adaptation that may be related to the directional preference of vertical slow eye movement-related neurons in the flocculus.
26. Blazquez PM, De Carrizosa MA, Heiney SA, Highstein SM. Neuronal substrates of motor learning in the velocity storage generated during optokinetic stimulation in the squirrel monkey. J Neurophysiol 2007; 97:1114-1126. The study helps to identify the neurons involved in the plastic change in OKN velocity storage after chronic VOR motor learning.
27. Bense S, Janusch B, Vucurevic G, et al. Brainstem and cerebellar fMRI-activation during horizontal and vertical optokinetic stimulation. Exp Brain Res 2006; 174:312-323. This paper nicely addresses the subcortical pathway subserving horizontal and vertical OKN in human.
28. Walker MF, Tian J, Zee DS. Kinematics of the rotational vestibuloocular reflex: role of the cerebellum. J Neurophysiol 2007; 98:295-302. This detailed study emphasizes the role of the cerebellum in controlling the three-dimensional axis of eye rotation, showing that in patients with cerebellar disease, there is substantially more eye-position-dependent torsional velocity than in normal subjects.
29. Tian J, Zee DS, Walker MF. Eye-position dependence of torsional velocity during step-ramp pursuit and transient yaw rotation in humans. Exp Brain Res 2006; 171:225-230.
30. Klier EM, Wang H, Crawford JD. Interstitial nucleus of Cajal encodes three-dimensional head orientations in Fick-like coordinates. J Neurophysiol 2007; 97:604-617. This is the first study of electrical stimulation of the interstitial nucleus of Cajal (isolated from the riMLF). This study allows us to identify how the interstitial nucleus of Cajal encodes head rotation signals.
31. Farshadmanesh F, Klier EM, Chang P, et al. Three-dimensional eye-head coordination after injection of muscimol into the interstitial nucleus of Cajal (INC). J Neurophysiol 2007; 97:2322-2338. This study gives new insights in eye-head interaction using simultaneous eye and head movement recording following interstitial nucleus of Cajal inactivation.
32. Alemdar M, Kamaci S, Budak F. Unilateral midbrain infarction causing upward and downward gaze palsy. J Neuroophthalmol 2006; 26:173-176.
33. Ahn BY, Choi KD, Kim JS, et al. Impaired ipsilateral smooth pursuit and gaze-evoked nystagmus in paramedian pontine lesion. Neurology 2007; 68:1436.
34. Salman MS, Sharpe JA, Lillakas L, et al. Smooth ocular pursuit in Chiari type II malformation. Dev Med Child Neurol 2007; 49:289-293.
35. Hasegawa RP, Hasegawa YT, Segraves MA. Single trial-based prediction of a go/no-go decision in monkey superior colliculus. Neural Netw 2006; 19:1223-1232.
36. Sereno AB, Briand KA, Amador SC, Szapiel SV. Disruption of reflexive attention and eye movements in an individual with a collicular lesion. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2006; 28:145-166. In this interesting case of a patient with bilateral superior colliculus lesion associated with Wernicke encephalopathy and thiamine deficiency, eye movement recording showed a lack of any gap effect and some 'staircase saccades' especially in a reactive task, but no irrepressible saccades.
37. Carasig D, Paul K, Fucito M, et al. Irrepressible saccades from a tectal lesion in a Rhesus monkey. Vision Res 2006; 46:1161-1169.
38. Dorris MC, Olivier E, Munoz DP. Competitive integration of visual and preparatory signals in the superior colliculus during saccadic programming. J Neurosci 2007; 27:5053-5062.
39. Robinson DA. Oculomotor control signals. In: Lennerstrand G, Bach-y-Rita P, editors. Basic mechanisms of ocular motility and their clinical implications. Oxford: Pergamon; 1975. pp. 337-374.
40. Kaneko CR. Effect of ibotenic acid lesions of the omnipause neurons on saccadic eye movements in rhesus macaques. J Neurophysiol 1996; 75:2229-2242.
41. Verhaeghe S, Diallo R, Nyffeler T, et al. Unidirectional ocular flutter. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2007; 78:764-766. A patient presenting a cerebellar syndrome showed an ocular flutter with very atypical characteristics: unidirectional, always initiated by a rightward saccade, and increasing in frequency and amplitude with more rightward orbital positions.
42. Rucker JC, Dell'Osso LF, Garbutt S, Jacobs JB. 'Staircase' saccadic intrusions plus transient yoking and neural integrator failure associated with cerebellar hypoplasia: a model simulation. Semin Ophthalmol 2006; 21:229-243.
43. Ramat S, Leigh RJ, Zee DS, Optican LM. Ocular oscillations generated by coupling of brainstem excitatory and inhibitory saccadic burst neurons. Exp Brain Res 2005; 160:89-106.
44. Miura K, Optican LM. Membrane channel properties of premotor excitatory burst neurons may underlie saccade slowing after lesions of omnipause neurons. J Comput Neurosci 2006; 20:25-41.
45. Ramat S, Leigh RJ, Zee DS, Optican LM. What clinical disorders tell us about the neural control of saccaic eye movements. Brain 2007; 130:10-35. This excellent paper emphasizes the need for combining scientific and clinical work. The authors develop four examples of clinical disorders that have provided recent insights in the physiology of saccades, and propose for each of these disorders a functional explanation and possible treatments.
46. Baets J, Pals P, Bergmans B, et al. Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome: a clinicopathological confrontation. Acta Neurol Belg 2006; 106:142-146.
47. Peter L, Jung J, Tilikete C, et al. Opsoclonus-myoclonus as a manifestation of Lyme disease. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2006; 77:1090-1091.
48. Koh SH, Kim SH. Ocular flutter induced only by optokinetic stimulation. J Clin Neurosci 2006; 13:479-481.
49. Rucker JC, Shapiro BE, Han YH, et al. Neuro-ophthalmology of late-onset Tay-Sachs disease (LOTS). Neurology 2004; 63:1918-1926.
50. Zivotofsky AZ, Siman-Tov T, Gadoth N, Gordon CR. A rare saccade velocity profile in stiff-person syndrome with cerebellar degeneration. Brain Res 2006; 1093:135-140.
51. Kanda T, Iwamoto Y, Yoshida K, Shimazu H. Glycinergic inputs cause the pause of pontine omnipause neurons during saccades. Neurosci Lett 2007; 413:16-20.
52. Prsa M, Galiana HL. Visual-vestibular interaction hypothesis for the control of orienting gaze shifts by brain stem omnipause neurons. J Neurophysiol 2007; 97:1149-1162. This new computational model of inputs to OPN is the first to successfully reproduce detailed eye-head movement trajectories observed under various conditions (head perturbation, OPN stimulation, multiple-step gaze shifts, VOR and VOR cancellation).
53. Rambold H, Moser A, Zurowski B, et al. Saccade initiation in ocular motor apraxia. J Neurol 2006; 253:950-952. Two patients presenting with an ocular motor apraxia were able to shift their gaze quite efficiently in the head-unrestrained condition, in part due to the triggering of a saccade synchronously with the voluntary head movement.
54. Cromer JA, Waitzman DM. A comparison of saccade associated neuronal activity in the primate central mesencephalic and paramedian pontine reticular formations. J Neurophysiol 2007; 98:835-850. Most burst neurons recorded in these two reticular formation areas encoded the horizontal component of the saccade, as convincingly revealed in a paradigm taking advantage of the saccade component stretching phenomenon.
55. Kremmyda O, Buttner-Ennever JA, Buttner U, Glasauer S. Torsional deviations with voluntary saccades due to a unilateral midbrain lesion. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2007; 78:1155-1157. A case study of a patient with a riMLF lesion demonstrates a specific torsional deviation associated with vertical saccades, which validates the organization of the midbrain for vertical and torsional saccadic burst generators previously identified in the monkey.
56. Kaneko CR, Fuchs AF. Effect of pharmacological inactivation of nucleus reticularis tegmenti pontis on saccadic eye movements in the monkey. J Neurophysiol 2006; 95:3698-3711.
57. Tilikete C, Koene A, Nighoghossian N, et al. Saccadic lateropulsion in Wallenberg syndrome: a window to access cerebellar control of saccades? Exp Brain Res 2006; 174:555-565. Two hypotheses of gaze dysmetria - sensory and motor - were contrasted in five patients with Wallenberg syndrome. The data suggest an impairment of both visual target localization and motor command execution.
58. Fu L, Tusa RJ, Mustari MJ, Das VE. Horizontal saccade disconjugacy in strabismic monkeys. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2007; 48:3107-3114.
59. Hopp JJ, Fuchs AF. Amplitude adaptation occurs where a saccade is represented as a vector and not as its components. Vision Res 2006; 46:3121-3128.
60. Alahyane N, Salemme R, Urquizar C, et al. Oculomotor plasticity: are mechanisms of adaptation for reactive and voluntary saccades separate? Brain Res 2007; 1135:107-121.
61. Collins T, Dore-Mazars K. Eye movement signals influence perception: evidence from the adaptation of reactive and volitional saccades. Vision Res 2006; 46:3659-3673.
62. Cotti J, Guillaume A, Alahyane N, et al. Adaptation of voluntary saccades, but not of reactive saccades, transfers to hand pointing movements. J Neurophysiol 2007; 98:602-612. This study shows that adaptation of voluntary saccades affects goal-directed limb pointing, whereas reactive saccades adaptation does not. This clearly demonstrates that the neural substrates of voluntary saccades adaptation are more extended and include sensory levels.
63. Alahyane N, Pelisson D. Long-lasting modifications of saccadic eye movements following adaptation induced in the double-step target paradigm. Learn Mem 2005; 12:433-443.
64. Robinson FR, Soetedjo R, Noto C. Distinct short-term and long-term adaptation to reduce saccade size in monkey. J Neurophysiol 2006; 96:1030-1041. This study demonstrates the presence of a long-term adaptation of saccades, which is distinct from the well-characterized short-term adaptation, and may rely on separate neural mechanisms.
65. Van der Geest JN, Haselen GC, Frens MA. Saccade adaptation in Williams-Beuren syndrome. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2006; 47:1464-1468.
66. Salman MS, Sharpe JA, Eizenman M, et al. Saccadic adaptation in Chiari type II malformation. Can J Neurol Sci 2006; 33:372-378.
67. Catz N, Dicke PW, Thier P. Cerebellar complex spike firing is suitable to induce as well as to stabilize motor learning. Curr Biol 2005; 15:2179-2189.
68. Soetedjo R, Fuchs AF. Complex spike activity of Purkinje cells in the oculomotor vermis during behavioral adaptation of monkey saccades. J Neurosci 2006; 26:7741-7755. This interesting study confirms that the cerebellar vermis is an important substrate of saccadic adaptation in the monkey. It shows consistent changes of Purkinje cell activity during the immediate postsaccadic period in a way corresponding with the sign of the error signal, in agreement with the Marr-Albus theory (but see [67]).
69. Takeichi N, Kaneko CR, Fuchs AF. Activity changes in monkey superior colliculus during saccade adaptation. J Neurophysiol 2007; 97:4096-4107.
70. Kojima Y, Yoshida K, Iwamoto Y. Microstimulation of the midbrain tegmentum creates learning signals for saccade adaptation. J Neurosci 2007; 27:3759-3767. This is a very innovative study demonstrating that saccade-triggered microstimulation of midbrain tegmentum in the monkey can lead to 'adaptation-like' changes of saccade amplitude. This study convincingly suggests that error signals for saccadic adaptation are conveyed in a pathway that courses through the midbrain tegmentum.