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Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking

BACKGROUND: Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are known to exhibit visuospatial processing impairment, as reflected in eye movements from the early stages of the disease. We investigated whether the pattern of gaze exploration during visual tasks could be useful for detecting cognitive decline...

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Autores principales: Tokushige, Shin-ichi, Matsumoto, Hideyuki, Matsuda, Shun-ichi, Inomata-Terada, Satomi, Kotsuki, Naoki, Hamada, Masashi, Tsuji, Shoji, Ugawa, Yoshikazu, Terao, Yasuo
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10070704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37025964
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2023.1123456
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author Tokushige, Shin-ichi
Matsumoto, Hideyuki
Matsuda, Shun-ichi
Inomata-Terada, Satomi
Kotsuki, Naoki
Hamada, Masashi
Tsuji, Shoji
Ugawa, Yoshikazu
Terao, Yasuo
author_facet Tokushige, Shin-ichi
Matsumoto, Hideyuki
Matsuda, Shun-ichi
Inomata-Terada, Satomi
Kotsuki, Naoki
Hamada, Masashi
Tsuji, Shoji
Ugawa, Yoshikazu
Terao, Yasuo
author_sort Tokushige, Shin-ichi
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are known to exhibit visuospatial processing impairment, as reflected in eye movements from the early stages of the disease. We investigated whether the pattern of gaze exploration during visual tasks could be useful for detecting cognitive decline at the earliest stage. METHODS: Sixteen AD patients (age: 79.1 ± 7.9 years, Mini Mental State Examination [MMSE] score: 17.7 ± 5.3, mean ± standard deviation) and 16 control subjects (age: 79.4 ± 4.6, MMSE score: 26.9 ± 2.4) participated. In the visual memory task, subjects memorized presented line drawings for later recall. In the visual search tasks, they searched for a target Landolt ring of specific orientation (serial search task) or color (pop-out task) embedded among arrays of distractors. Using video-oculography, saccade parameters, patterns of gaze exploration, and pupil size change during task performance were recorded and compared between AD and control subjects. RESULTS: In the visual memory task, the number of informative regions of interest (ROIs) fixated was significantly reduced in AD patients compared to control subjects. In the visual search task, AD patients took a significantly longer time and more saccades to detect the target in the serial but not in pop-out search. In both tasks, there was no significant difference in the saccade frequency and amplitude between groups. On-task pupil modulation during the serial search task was decreased in AD. The number of ROIs fixated in the visual memory task and search time and saccade numbers in the serial search task differentiated both groups of subjects with high sensitivity, whereas saccade parameters of pupil size modulation were effective in confirming normal cognition from cognitive decline with high specificity. DISCUSSION: Reduced fixation on informative ROIs reflected impaired attentional allocation. Increased search time and saccade numbers in the visual search task indicated inefficient visual processing. Decreased on-task pupil size during visual search suggested decreased pupil modulation with cognitive load in AD patients, reflecting impaired function of the locus coeruleus. When patients perform the combination of these tasks to visualize multiple aspects of visuospatial processing, cognitive decline can be detected at an early stage with high sensitivity and specificity and its progression be evaluated.
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spelling pubmed-100707042023-04-05 Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking Tokushige, Shin-ichi Matsumoto, Hideyuki Matsuda, Shun-ichi Inomata-Terada, Satomi Kotsuki, Naoki Hamada, Masashi Tsuji, Shoji Ugawa, Yoshikazu Terao, Yasuo Front Aging Neurosci Neuroscience BACKGROUND: Patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are known to exhibit visuospatial processing impairment, as reflected in eye movements from the early stages of the disease. We investigated whether the pattern of gaze exploration during visual tasks could be useful for detecting cognitive decline at the earliest stage. METHODS: Sixteen AD patients (age: 79.1 ± 7.9 years, Mini Mental State Examination [MMSE] score: 17.7 ± 5.3, mean ± standard deviation) and 16 control subjects (age: 79.4 ± 4.6, MMSE score: 26.9 ± 2.4) participated. In the visual memory task, subjects memorized presented line drawings for later recall. In the visual search tasks, they searched for a target Landolt ring of specific orientation (serial search task) or color (pop-out task) embedded among arrays of distractors. Using video-oculography, saccade parameters, patterns of gaze exploration, and pupil size change during task performance were recorded and compared between AD and control subjects. RESULTS: In the visual memory task, the number of informative regions of interest (ROIs) fixated was significantly reduced in AD patients compared to control subjects. In the visual search task, AD patients took a significantly longer time and more saccades to detect the target in the serial but not in pop-out search. In both tasks, there was no significant difference in the saccade frequency and amplitude between groups. On-task pupil modulation during the serial search task was decreased in AD. The number of ROIs fixated in the visual memory task and search time and saccade numbers in the serial search task differentiated both groups of subjects with high sensitivity, whereas saccade parameters of pupil size modulation were effective in confirming normal cognition from cognitive decline with high specificity. DISCUSSION: Reduced fixation on informative ROIs reflected impaired attentional allocation. Increased search time and saccade numbers in the visual search task indicated inefficient visual processing. Decreased on-task pupil size during visual search suggested decreased pupil modulation with cognitive load in AD patients, reflecting impaired function of the locus coeruleus. When patients perform the combination of these tasks to visualize multiple aspects of visuospatial processing, cognitive decline can be detected at an early stage with high sensitivity and specificity and its progression be evaluated. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10070704/ /pubmed/37025964 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2023.1123456 Text en Copyright © 2023 Tokushige, Matsumoto, Matsuda, Inomata-Terada, Kotsuki, Hamada, Tsuji, Ugawa and Terao. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Tokushige, Shin-ichi
Matsumoto, Hideyuki
Matsuda, Shun-ichi
Inomata-Terada, Satomi
Kotsuki, Naoki
Hamada, Masashi
Tsuji, Shoji
Ugawa, Yoshikazu
Terao, Yasuo
Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title_full Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title_fullStr Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title_full_unstemmed Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title_short Early detection of cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
title_sort early detection of cognitive decline in alzheimer’s disease using eye tracking
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10070704/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37025964
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2023.1123456
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