Potential Significance of Eyeblinks as a Behavior Marker of Neuropsychiatric Disorders

ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of this review is to present an overview of relationship between human spontaneous eyeblinking and internal cognitive processes. The second purpose is to address the neural substrates of human eyeblinking based on recent studies focusing on the central dopaminergic system and to explore the significance of spontaneous eyeblinks in neuropsychiatric disorders. We reviewed recent and previous studies on eyeblink patterns under various cognitive tasks. We also reviewed neural substrates of eyeblinking, particularly based on the central dopaminergic system. This paper suggests that spontaneous eyeblinks are highly correlated with various cognitive processes and the activity of central dopaminergic system. Various neuropsychiatric disorders are related to the alteration of the occurrence of eyeblinking. Spontaneous eyeblinking is the unique human behavior that occurs regularly without conscious effort. It is known that the rate of eyeblinking is modulated by internal cognitive processes and dopamine-related neuropsychiatric disorders. Further research is required to how the temporal dynamics of spontaneous eyeblinking is correlated with the disease activity and progression.