Eye-hand coordination patterns of progressive and consistent micrographia in Parkinson's disease: neurophysiological correlates.

OBJECTIVE

Micrographia in Parkinson's disease (PD) presents with two phenotypes: progressive (PM), with gradual size reduction, and consistent (CM), with uniformly small letters. We aimed to characterize the features of PM and CM to elucidate the underlying pathophysiology.

METHODS

We examined 42 patients with PD and 31 healthy controls using a handwriting task under visual feedback (VF) and no-VF conditions. Finger trajectories were recorded using a touchscreen and motion capture system. Eye movements were assessed during writing and in visually guided (VGS) and memory-guided (MGS) saccade tasks. Clinical scores and neuroimaging data (123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine [MIBG] scintigraphy and dopamine transporter [DaT] scans) were analyzed in relation to behavioral parameters.

RESULTS

PM was associated with upward gaze drift, reduced upper limb amplitude, impaired MGS, and decreased MIBG uptake, indicating basal ganglia and pre-supplementary motor area dysfunction. CM was characterized by leftward gaze bias, slower movements, greater postural instability, and relatively preserved MIBG, suggesting midbrain and cerebellar involvement. VF influenced handwriting in both groups, with greater improvement in PM.

CONCLUSIONS

The results serve as a hypothesis-generating observation that distinct eye-hand correlation may underlie PM and CM linked to different PD pathophysiology, possibly body-first and brain-first α-synuclein propagation patterns, although the exact mechanism needs to be investigated in future studies. These eye-hand metrics could aid in clinical subtyping and personalizing interventions.

SIGNIFICANCE: This study shows that PM and CM are not merely variants of handwriting impairment but may be linked to distinct neurophysiological basis, providing a basis for clinical subtyping in PD.