ALCOHOL AND THE OCULOMOTOR SYSTEM

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  • UMEDA YOSHIO
    Department of Otorizinolaryngology,Tokyo Rosai Hospital
  • SAKATA EIJI
    Department of Otorizinolaryngology,Tokyo Rosai Hospital
  • OHTSU KYOKO
    Department of Otorizinolaryngology,Tokyo Rosai Hospital

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  • アルコールの眼運動系に及ぼす影響
  • アルコール ノ ガン ウンドウケイ ニ オヨボス エイキョウ

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Abstract

It is known that alcohol affects the oculomoto system and elicits positionalacoholnystagmus Recently it has been shown that disturbance in smooth pursuit eye movements occurs depend-ing on the quantity of ingested alcohol.However, it is also known that test is normal at the early stage of alcohol-induced breakdown of smooth pursuit movements.This indicates that alcohol affects the cerebellum prior to affecting the midbrain and pons(WILKINSON et al., 1974).<br>In order to further investigate the effect of alcohol on th cerebellum, subjects ingested alcohol(whisky)and their oculomotor function was tested.The followings are general findings obtained.<br>1)Low blood-alcohol concentration causes slight disturbance in the caloric eye-tracking pattern and slight positional nystagmus is occasionally evident.<br>2)As the blood-alcohol level increases, positional nystagmus becomes more apparent and the eye-tracking pattern begins to break down.The caloric eye-trackingpa ttern be-comes severely disturbed.<br>3)Gaze nystagmus does not appear until the blood-alcohol level becomesmuch higher.<br>hese findings indicate that alcohol affects the caloric eye-tracking patterns prior to the conventional eye-tracking patterns.Alcohol must therefore initially affect the areas of the cerebellum related tovisual suppression, namely the flocculo-nodular system.

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