Evaluation of electro-oculography data for ataxia SCA-2 classification: A blind source separation approach

Spino Cerebellar Ataxia type 2 is an autosomal dominant cerebellar hereditary ataxia with the highest prevalence in Cuba. Typical symptoms in patients of SCA2 ataxia include modifications in latency, peak velocity, and deviation in visual saccadic movements. After applying some electro-oculography based tests to both healthy and SCA2 afflicted individuals, differences in saccade morphology were found, mainly for 60º of stimulus amplitude. In this work, independent component analysis (ICA) is used to decompose the pulse and step components for the control of saccadic ocular movements, finding significant differences in time and amplitude ratio of both components. The obtained results point out the validity of the proposed methodology in order to study the effects of ataxia SCA2 in the oculomotor system.