Oscillopsia and retinal slip. Evidence supporting a clinical test.

A clinical bedside test for oscillopsia is described for patients suffering from an acute deficiency of compensatory eye movements due either to inappropriate pursuit eye movements or a defective vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). This test involves quantitative measurement of the amplitude of apparent image motion (oscillopsia) during head oscillations with frequencies of 1 or 2 Hz, +/- 20 deg amplitude. It was found that normals show no oscillopsia at 1 Hz whereas patients with acute disorders do. In subacute diseases of eye-head co-ordination, however, recordings of head and eye movements revealed a dissociation between net retinal slip and oscillopsia, with the magnitude of the latter being appreciably smaller than the former. This was interpreted as indicating a central suppression mechanism initiated by the acute eye movement deficiency. The results are discussed in terms of an inhibitory interaction between self and object motion perception which produces elevated thresholds for the detection of image motion.