Intactness of inhibitory saccade mechanism in minor traumatic head injury

Abstract

Patients with traumatic brain injury often complain of impairments of attention and information processing in the absence of apparent neurological signs. We studied visual saccade distractibility in a group of patients within 24 hours after a minor traumatic head injury (MTHI). A dual-task paradigm was applied. The results did not demonstrate any evidence of saccade distractibility as a specific effect of MTHI. These findings suggest that saccade inhibitory processing deficits may not be involved in the attention difficulties in acute MTHI.