Colour vision in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy

Abstract

Aims . To determine the integrity of colour perception, related to photic sensitivity, in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. Methods . Twenty‐four patients with photoparoxysmal response, 27 patients without photoparoxysmal response, and 32 healthy individuals were investigated using the Farnsworth Munsell‐100 Hue test to calculate error scores for total colour, blue/yellow, and red/green. Results . No significant differences were observed regarding blue/yellow, red/green or total error score between juvenile myoclonic epilepsy patients with or without photoparoxysmal response. However, the data for all three scores were significantly higher in both patient groups compared to the healthy control group. In both patient groups, the blue/yellow error score was significantly higher than the red/green error score. Conclusions . We were unable to identify a relationship between photoparoxysmal response and colour vision in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. We believe that the underlying reason why juvenile myoclonic epilepsy patients had significantly higher blue/yellow, red/green, and total error score compared to the healthy control group may be due to GABA dysfunction, which is considered to play a role in the pathophysiology of this disease as well as the physiology of colour vision.