P021 Associations between Virtual Reality (VR) Ocular Assessments and Vigilance during Extended Wakefulness – Preliminary Analysis

INTRODUCTION: Sustained vigilance is essential for safety in high-risk workplaces, making rapid and accessible alertness failure vulnerability assessments extremely desirable. We are piloting existing technology, the NeuroFlex® Platform, which takes ocular performance measurements of both prosaccade and antisaccade eye-movements using a portable Virtual Reality (VR) headset. We’ve conducted preliminary comparisons between these measures and Psychomotor Vigilance during extended wakefulness. METHODS: Sixteen young-adults (females= 8; age M= 25.13, SD= 4.30) completed five test batteries starting 1-hour post-wake where repeated testing encapsuled more than 24-hours of extended wakefulness. Each battery consisted of two 10-minute visual Psychomotor Vigilance Tasks, in addition to three administrations of 60-second prosaccade and antisaccade assessments using the NeuroFlex® VR platform. RESULTS: Time main effects occurred for reciprocal reaction time, F(3.83,57.37) = 20.54, p <.001, and proportions of lapses/trials, F(3.55,48.33) = 7.36, p <.001. Vigilance troughs occurred around the circadian nadir (19-hours post-wake) with some recovery at final administrations (25-hours post-wake). No associations were found between prosaccade latency and vigilance metrics. Moderate negative (r=-.63, p=.01 & r=-.54, p=.03) associations were found between antisaccade latency and reciprocal reaction time near the nadir, but not the number of lapses per trial. DISCUSSION: This preliminary analysis has demonstrated potential sensitivity of the NeuroFlex® platforms ocular measurements to vigilance. Though we have not detected associations between lapses and eye-movement latency, we were limited to the existing output generation of the NeuroFlex® platform in this preliminary investigation. With refined data analyses, we see promise in the NeuroFlex® platforms capability of predicting alertness failure.