Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Freezing is a phenomenon that many people living with Parkinson’s Disease experience. It is defined as a “brief, episodic absence or marked reduction of forward progression of the feet despite the intention to walk” (Bloem et al., 2004). A definitive answer regarding how and why people freeze remains to be unknown. Executive function can be diminished among people living with PD. Performing eye movement assessments can reveal executive dysfunction. Pro-anti-saccade tasks are a common tool used to assess people’s eye movements and executive function simultaneously. During a pro-anti-saccade task, a target is presented, and the participant is asked to look at a target (pro-saccade) or inhibit themselves from looking at a target (anti-saccade). When the fixation is removed as the target appears, performance improves for both healthy people and people living with Parkinson’s Disease; this is known as a gap effect (express saccade) (Nemanich & Earhart., 2016). Many people living with Parkinson’s Disease experience both freezing and executive dysfunction. Examining executive function through eye movements will provide greater insight into the pathophysiology of freezing. The objective of this study is to explore eye movement impairments among people living with Parkinson’s Disease. We aim to evaluate the relationship between these impairments and levels of executive functioning. Lastly, we aim to determine a relationship between eye movement impairments and freezing. Are aberrant eye movements predictive of freezing among people living with Parkinson’s Disease? We hypothesize that individuals who experience freezing will perform poorly on eye movement tests and show greater gap effects compared to the control group because of executive dysfunction.