Nystagmus
condition of involuntary eye movement
Nystagmus is a condition of involuntary (or voluntary, in some cases) eye movement. People can be born with it but more commonly acquire it in infancy or later in life. In many cases it may result in reduced or limited vision.
In normal eyesight, while the head rotates about an axis, distant visual images are sustained by rotating eyes in the opposite direction of the respective axis. The semicircular canals in the vestibule of the ear sense angular acceleration, and send signals to the nuclei for eye movement in the brain. From here, a signal is relayed to the extraocular muscles to allow one's gaze to fix on an object as the head moves. Nystagmus occurs when the semicircular canals are stimulated (e.g., by means of the caloric test, or by disease) while the head is stationary. The direction of ocular movement is related to the semicircular canal that is being stimulated.
There are two key forms of nystagmus: pathological and physiological, with variations within each type. Physiological nystagmus occurs under normal conditions in healthy subjects.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nystagmus” is condition of involuntary eye movement. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nystagmus, condition and involuntary, not as a finished interpretation.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q220989. The Library of Congress control number is sh85093547. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nystagmus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.