Recent development of the study on clinical significance of abnormal eye movement.

As a general trend, the diagnosis in medical clinics often depends on laboratory test results. Neurotological diagnosis, however, requires detailed neurological examinations on a patient by a neurotologist. Therefore, there are differing diagnostic skills among physicians, and there is a kind of "man-made flavor" in neurotological diagnostic procedure. In the present study, current development in the knowledge on the clinical diagnostic significance of pathological eye movement during the last 2-3 years is summarized. Acquired pendular wondering eye-movement. Fixation jerks. Spontaneous and transitory eyeball burst or seizure. Vertical rebound nystagmus. Optokinetic vertical ocular dysmetria. Divergence nystagmus. Counterolling, pure rotatory positioning nystagmus. Inversion of optokinetic after-nystagmus (OKAN). Vertical congenital nystagmus and inversion of optokinetic nystagmus (OKN). Treatment of congenital nystagmus. Vertical spontaneous nystagmus to lower eyelid or so-called "downbeat nystagmus." Downbeat nystagmus seen in bilateral labyrinthine dysfunction. The significance of bilateral vestibular lesion, or symmetric lesion in other is emphasized in the present report for reader's reference and criticism. Our experience on the clinical significance of the abnormal eye movement was reported. It is our wish that accumulation of data on important cases along with the results of experimental studies directly connected with clinical medicine may contribute to the progress of our neurotology in the right direction as "neurology of the posterior fossa."