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NEUROLOGY 1988;38:76
© 1988 American Academy of Neurology

Effect of stimulus orientation on contrast sensitivity in Parkinson's disease

C. Bulens, MD, J. D. Meerwaldt, MD and G. J. Van der Wildt, PhD

Department of Neurology (Dr. Bulens), Sint Franciscus Gasthuis; the Department of Neurology (Dr. Meerwaldt), University Hospital Dijkzigt; and the Department of Biological and Medical Physics (Dr. Van der Wildt), Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

We studied the effect of stimulus orientation on contrast sensitivity function in 21 patients with Parkinson's disease and in 10 normal subjects. This was done by measuring contrast sensitivity over a range of spatial frequencies for vertical and horizontal sine wave grating stimuli. There was a great test-retest consistency in normal subjects and patients. Fifteen of the 21 patients showed contrast sensitivity deficit in at least one eye. Orientation-specific loss was demonstrated in 17 of the 25 "affected" eyes. The most frequent type of orientation-specific loss was a notch defect, which preferentially affected the middle spatial frequencies. We attribute orientation-specific and spatial frequency-selective loss in Parkinson's disease to a functional disruption of neurons of the visual cortex.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Bulens, Department of Neurology, Sint Franciscus Gasthuis, Kleiweg 500,3045 PM Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Received December 22, 1986. Accepted for publication in final form March 17, 1987.




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