Suppression of acquired pendular nystagmus in MS with blinks and saccades
Creator
Daniel R. Gold, DO
Affiliation
(DRG) Departments of Neurology, Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, Emergency Medicine, and Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
Subject
Pendular nystagmus
Description
Acquired pendular nystagmus (APN) due to multiple sclerosis can be debilitating, and while medications (e.g., memantine, gabapentin) may offer modest benefit, rarely do they abolish APN altogether. Blinks and saccades can momentarily suppress APN to allow for clearer vision. This may relate to a transient resetting of an otherwise unstable neural integrator, which is normally responsible for turning eye velocity into eye position commands, thus allowing for steady gaze.
