Oct, 1, 2023

Vol.30 No.2, pp. 84-88

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Review

  • Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry
  • Volume 6(1); 1999
  • Article

Review

Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry 1999;6(1):119-24. Published online: Jan, 1, 1999

Abstract PDF Full Text

Improvement of Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements after Cigarette Smoking in Chronic Schizophrenic Patients

  • Jong-Hun Kim, MD1;In-Sang Lee, MD2;Han-Gil Seo, MD1;Sun-Il Jung, MD3;Chul-Soo Park, MD1,4; and Sung-Il Woo, MD1,4;
    1;Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Gyeongsang National University, Chinju, 2;Gyeongnam Provincial Mental Hospital, Sachun, 3;Department of Internal Medicine, Gyeongsang National University, Chinju, 4;Gyeongsang Institute for Neuroscience, Chinju, Korea
Abstract

This study was done to examine whether cigarette smoking improved smooth pursuit eye movement(SPEM) abnormalities in chronic schizophrenic inpatients. Fifteen schizophrenic and twelve alcoholic subjects abstained from their usual cigarette smoking for a minimum of nine hours and their baseline performances during the constant velocity smooth pursuit tasks were assessed. Then, the subjects smoked as much as they desired in a 10 minutes period and were retested immediately after smoking and 15 minutes after smoking. Electrooculographic recordings during the eye movements were converted and saved as digitized files. Power spectral density curves and natural logarithm value of signal/noise(Ln S/N) ratios were computed from them. In the schizophrenic patients, Ln S/N ratios increased significantly immediately after smoking compared to baseline. But, Ln S/N ratios showed no statistically significant changes after 15 minutes compared to baseline. In alcoholic subjects, Ln S/N ratios showed no statistically significant changes immediately after smoking and after 15 minutes compared to baseline. In conclusion, SPEM was improved in schizophrenic patients immediately after smoking and we hypothesized that nicotinic receptor dysfunction maybe a candidate mechanism for smooth pursuit eye movement abnormalities in schizophrenia.

Keywords Cigarette smoking;Nicotine;SPEM(Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement);Ln S/N ratio;Schizophrenia;Alcoholism.