By Marcello Cherchi, MD PhD
For clinicians
Smooth pursuit in children
Sinno and colleagues (Sinno et al. 2019) studied 120 healthy children age 5 – 17 years with videonystagmography. They reported the following regarding smooth pursuit:
|
Age range |
Smooth pursuit gain |
|
5 – 8 year olds |
0.63 |
|
15 – 17 year olds |
0.85 |
Smooth pursuit in the elderly
Hajioff and colleagues (Hajioff et al. 2000) studied 96 healthy subjects (56 men) age 66 – 89 years (median age 76 years) using electronystagmography. For horizontal smooth pursuit (0.4 Hz, amplitude 20˚/sec) they reported gain with a lower reference limit of 0.272 (95% CI 0.197 – 0.346) and an upper reference limit of 1.13 (95% CI 1.05 – 1.20).
Smooth pursuit over a broad age range
Seferlis and colleagues (Seferlis et al. 2015) studied 250 healthy subjects (87 male) age 18 – 70 years using videonystagmography. To elicit smooth pursuit they projected a yellow-colored circular target with a width of 1˚, moving in a sinusoidal pattern in the horizontal plane, with an amplitude of 10˚ in each direction, velocity of 10˚/sec and frequency of 0.6 Hz. They reported the following gains and slow phase velocities stratified by age:
|
Age range (years) |
Number of subjects |
Mean (95% CI) slow phase velocity (degrees/second) |
Mean (95% CI) gain (percent) |
|
|
Smooth pursuit, leftwards |
Group A, 18 – 30 |
50 |
10.74 (10.12 – 11.36) |
88.92 (85.28 – 92.56) |
|
Group B, 31 – 40 |
50 |
10.08 (9.33 – 10.83) |
88.18 (84.50 – 91.86) |
|
|
Group C, 41 – 50 |
50 |
9.60 (8.76 – 10.44) |
85.26 (82.09 – 88.43) |
|
|
Group D, 51 – 60 |
50 |
9.26 (8.80 – 9.72) |
84.92 (81.81 – 88.03) |
|
|
Group E, 61 – 70 |
50 |
8.46 (7.94 – 8.98) |
79.04 (75.10 – 82.98) |
|
|
Total |
250 |
9.63 (9.33 – 9.93) |
85.26 (83.67 – 86.86) |
|
|
Smooth pursuit, rightwards |
Group A, 18 – 30 |
50 |
10.74 (10.19 – 11.29) |
90.24 (86.90 – 93.58) |
|
Group B, 31 – 40 |
50 |
11.44 (10.16 – 12.72) |
91.12 (88.31 – 93.93) |
|
|
Group C, 41 – 50 |
50 |
10.52 (9.71 – 11.33) |
88.06 (85.38 – 90.74) |
|
|
Group D, 51 – 60 |
50 |
10.06 (9.28 – 10.84) |
83.24 (79.41 – 87.07) |
|
|
Group E, 61 – 70 |
50 |
8.86 (8.29 – 9.43) |
80.86 (77.51 – 84.21) |
|
|
Total |
250 |
10.32 (9.94 – 10.70) |
86.70 (85.21 – 88.19) |
Sharpe and colleagues (Sharpe and Sylvester 1978) studied 15 healthy subjects (7 men) age 19 – 32 years, and 10 healthy subjects (3 men) age 65 – 77 years. They studied horizontal smooth pursuit at different target velocities and reported the findings below regarding the slow phase eye velocities (not gain). Each data cell reports the mean velocity ± standard deviation, followed by the maximum individual subject value.
|
Target velocity in deg/sec |
|||||||||
|
5 |
10 |
20 |
30 |
40 |
50 |
60 |
80 |
100 |
|
|
Age 19 – 32 years |
4.9±0.2 5.8 |
9.6±0.7 12.2 |
19.6±1.2 25.0 |
29.3±2.4 43.0 |
36.0±5.2 47.5 |
39.4±9.0 56.0 |
38.4±10.0 61.0 |
32.2±15.2 75.0 |
29.1±18.0 70.0 |
|
Age 65 – 77 years |
4.7±0.6 5.6 |
8.7±0.9 11.3 |
13.8±3.2 22.5 |
16.2±6.3 32.5 |
18.4±9.2 42.5 |
16.0±7.5 30.0 |
— 25.0 |
— 15.0 |
— — |
Sharpe and colleagues (Sharpe and Sylvester 1978) also reported the smooth pursuit latencies at several different target velocities as shown below. Each data cell reports the mean latency in milliseconds ± standard deviation, followed by the number of subjects in that trial.
|
Target velocity in deg/sec |
|||
|
5 |
10 |
20 |
|
|
Age 19 – 32 years |
131±23 (10 subjects) |
138±21 (12 subjects) |
134±34 (11 subjects) |
|
Age 65 – 77 years |
176±33 (5 subjects) |
183±49 (5 subjects) |
169±37 (8 subjects) |
Spooner and colleagues (Spooner, Sakala, Baloh 1980) studied 25 healthy subjects aged 22 – 64 years (mean 42 years), and 14 healthy subjects age 50 – 85 years (mean 65 years) with electronystagmography. The overlap in age between the groups is apparently because the first group “had served as normal controls in our laboratory for several years.” They used a horizontal smooth pursuit protocol in which the, “target moved in fixed-cycle constant velocity ramps (22, 37, 51˚/s) for ten cycles each at 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 Hz.” In the results displayed below each data cell shows the mean eye velocity ± standard deviation.
|
Target velocity in deg/sec |
|||
|
22 |
37 |
51 |
|
|
Age 22 – 64 years |
18.6±1.3 |
29.0±3.3 |
37.0±5.6 |
|
Age 50 – 85 years |
17.0±2.1 |
24.7±5.6 |
29.4±8.7 |
References
Hajioff D, Barr-Hamilton RM, Colledge NR, Lewis SJ, Wilson JA (2000) Re-evaluation of normative electronystagmography data in healthy ageing. Clin Otolaryngol Allied Sci 25: 249-52. doi: coa361 [pii]
Seferlis F, Chimona TS, Papadakis CE, Bizakis J, Triaridis S, Skoulakis C (2015) Age related changes in ocular motor testing in healthy subjects. J Vestib Res 25: 57-66. doi: 10.3233/VES-150548
Sharpe JA, Sylvester TO (1978) Effect of aging on horizontal smooth pursuit. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 17: 465-8.
Sinno S, Najem F, Smith Abouchacra K, Perrin P, Dumas G (2019) Normative Values of Saccades and Smooth Pursuit in Children Aged 5 to 17 Years. J Am Acad Audiol: 0. doi: 10.3766/jaaa.19049
Spooner JW, Sakala SM, Baloh RW (1980) Effect of aging on eye tracking. Arch Neurol 37: 575-6. doi: 10.1001/archneur.1980.00500580071012
