Eye tracking in patients with unipolar and bipolar affective disorders in remission

Examined patients (20-66 yrs old) with a history of recurrent affective disorder on a variety of smooth-pursuit and saccadic eye-tracking tasks and on psychomotor analogs of these tasks. The 25 unipolar and 24 bipolar Ss were compared to 24 schizophrenics; all Ss were in remission. Results indicate that the performance of the 2 affective-disorder groups was not significantly different from that of the controls on any of these tasks. Smooth-pursuit tracking error was greater for Ss receiving Li and for those with a higher frequency of prior episodes of the disorder. When the pursuit eye movements of these Ss were compared to those of the schizophrenics, the latter produced more tracking error than both affective-disorder groups but significantly so only with respect to unipolar Ss. Although findings are consistent with the interpretation that tracking dysfunction is not a trait characteristic of affective disorders, further investigations contrasting remitted patients with bipolar and schizophrenic disorders are needed to determine the specificity of deviant tracking to schizophrenia. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).