Characteristics of open‐ and closed‐loop smooth pursuit responses among obsessive‐compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, and nonpsychiatric individuals

Twenty obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and comparison samples of 20 schizophrenia and 20 nonpsychiatric individuals were presented with (a) a step-ramp task designed to measure smooth pursuit initiation and (b) a regular ramp task designed to measure steady-state tracking performance. Obsessive-compulsive disorder and non-psychiatric individuals had statistically similar pursuit reaction time and average eye accelerations during the open-loop interval. They also had similar closed-loop performance. Schizophrenia patients, however, had delayed pursuit reaction times and reduced eye acceleration during the last 60 ms of the open-loop interval. These findings suggest that brain regions supporting smooth pursuit performance are unimpaired among obsessive-compulsive disorder patients. Furthermore, the deficits found in the schizophrenia patients replicate and extend the results of previous smooth pursuit studies.