Allen Radant, MD
Personal Statement
The neurophysiology underlying various aspects of oculomotor function is fairly well understood; thus oculomotor tasks can be used to assess reasonably discrete neurophysiological functions. Neurophysiological functions abnormal in schizophrenia, such as inhibition, attention, and motor integration, all have oculomotor analogs that can be measured with simple oculomotor tasks.
One of my interests is to improve these tasks so that they are more sensitive and specific measures of schizophrenia-related oculomotor abnormalities. Another interest relates to the use of endophenotypes, which are traits related to an illness, more easily defined and quantified than the illness, and that are likely to have a simpler genetic architecture. Currently, I am involved in a large, multisite, study in which we are using oculomotor abnormalities (in addition to a number of other traits) as an endophenotype for linkage analysis in schizophrenia-affected families. Our hope is that discovery of genes responsible for abnormal oculomotor function will shed light on the genetics of schizophrenia itself.
