Aslam Sana, Olson Markey, Kovacs Melissa, Ansari Pireh, Karukote Amputch, Chan Justine, Barbu Shadi, Felsen Sydney, Shill Holly A, Adler Charles H
Department of Neurology, Muhammad Ali Parkinson's Center, Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Department of Neurosurgery, Barrow Neurological Institute, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
Clin Park Relat Disord. 2025 Sep 6;13:100390. doi: 10.1016/j.prdoa.2025.100390. eCollection 2025.
Parkinson's disease (PD) often causes visual changes that impair visuospatial processing, reading speed, and contrast acuity, impacting patients' quality of life.
This study aimed to investigate the effects of levodopa and deep brain stimulation (DBS) on visual symptoms associated with PD.
Patients were assessed either before DBS surgery (both off and on medication) or at their first DBS programming session (off medication, with and without stimulation). The King-Devick reading speed and color contrast visual tests were administered in each condition, evaluating high and low contrast across black, red, and yellow.
Reading speed and color contrast acuity did not change following levodopa dosing or when deep brain stimulation was off or on. However, those patients that had testing before and after DBS showed a non-significant trend towards improvement in their rapid reading test scores from pre-DBS to post-DBS and black color contrast sensitivity using the 2.5% contrast.
Although levodopa and DBS did not significantly improve reading speed or contrast acuity after single dosing or turning DBS on and off, in this small study, these findings provide valuable insights into the stability of these visual symptoms under current treatments. There was evidence that DBS surgery may improve certain aspects of reading speed and contrast acuity and further study is needed. This work underscores the need for innovative approaches to enhance visual function in PD.
帕金森病（PD）常导致视觉变化，损害视觉空间处理、阅读速度和对比敏感度，影响患者生活质量。
本研究旨在探讨左旋多巴和脑深部电刺激（DBS）对与PD相关的视觉症状的影响。
对患者在DBS手术前（未服药和服药时）或首次DBS程控时（未服药，刺激开和关）进行评估。在每种情况下均进行King-Devick阅读速度和颜色对比视觉测试，评估黑色、红色和黄色的高对比度和低对比度。
左旋多巴给药后或脑深部电刺激开或关时，阅读速度和颜色对比敏感度均未改变。然而，那些在DBS前后进行测试的患者，从DBS术前到术后，快速阅读测试得分和使用2.5%对比度的黑色颜色对比敏感度有改善的趋势，但不显著。
虽然在单次给药或DBS开关后，左旋多巴和DBS并未显著提高阅读速度或对比敏感度，但在这项小型研究中，这些发现为当前治疗下这些视觉症状的稳定性提供了有价值的见解。有证据表明DBS手术可能改善阅读速度和对比敏感度的某些方面，需要进一步研究。这项工作强调了需要创新方法来增强PD患者的视觉功能。
