Detecting eye movement abnormalities from concussion

Abstract

An attention-based biomarker may be useful for concussion screening. A key role of attention is to generate time-based expectancies of specific sensory information, and it is postulated that postconcussion cognitive impairments and symptoms may stem from a primary deficit in this predictive timing mechanism. There is a close relationship between gaze and attention, but in addressing predictive timing, there is a need for an appropriate testing paradigm and methods to quantify oculomotor anomalies. We have utilized a continuous predictive visual tracking paradigm because human visual tracking requires predicting the temporal course of a stimulus and dynamically synchronizing the required action with the stimulus. We have shown that concussion patients often show disrupted gaze-target synchronization characterized by large gaze position error variability and overall phase advancement. Various attention components interact with visual tracking, and thus there is a possibility that different neurological and physiological conditions produce identifiable visual tracking characteristics. Analyzing neuromotor functions, specifically oculomotor synchronization, can provide a fast, accurate, and reliable assessment of cognitive functions.