Abstract
BackgroundThe waveforms of the pupillary light reflex (PLR) can be analyzed in a diagnostic test that allows for differentiation between disorders affecting photoreceptors and disorders affecting retinal ganglion cells, using various signal processing techniques. This procedure has been used on both healthy subjects and patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), as a simple diagnostic procedure is required for diagnosis.ResultsThe Fourier descriptor technique is used to extract the features of PLR waveform shapes of pupillograms and their amplitudes. To detect those patients affected by AMD using the extracted features, multidimensional scaling (MDS) and clustering techniques were used to emphasize stimuli and subject differences. The detection performance of AMD using the features and the MDS technique shows only a qualitative tendency, however. To evaluate the detection performance quantitatively, a set of combined features was created to evaluate characteristics of the PLR waveform shapes in detail. Classification performance was compared across three categories (AMD patients, aged, and healthy subjects) using the Random Forest method, and weighted values were optimized using variations of the classification error rates. The results show that the error rates for healthy pupils and AMD-affected pupils were low when the value of the coefficient for a combination of PLR amplitudes and features of waveforms was optimized as 1.5. However, the error rates for patients with age-affected eyes was not low.ConclusionsA classification procedure for AMD patients has been developed using the features of PLR waveform shapes and their amplitudes. The results show that the error rates for healthy PLRs and AMD PLRs were low when the Random Forest method was used to produce the classification. The classification of pupils of patients with age-affected eyes should be carefully considered in order to produce optimum results.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13637-014-0018-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The pupillary response has long been used for diagnostic procedures [1] and psycho-physiological studies [2-4]
Prediction procedure for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) disease This paper proposes a procedure for detecting AMD patients and diseased eyes
This paper proposes a possible procedure for detecting AMD-affected eyes and age-affected eyes using features of pupillary light reflex (PLR) waveforms
Summary
The pupillary response has long been used for diagnostic procedures [1] and psycho-physiological studies [2-4]. In addition to receiving rod and cone inputs, the responses based on the newly discovered system have been studied as intrinsically photosensitive [9,10] Those cells are interchangeably referred to as ipRGC or melanopsin-mediated retinal ganglion cells (mRGC), and according to recent studies, they drive pupillary responses and circadian rhythms [6-8]. Feature extraction and analysis of PLRs has made a significant contribution to the development of diagnostic procedures for these patients, as opthalmologically scientific evidence was discovered Another well-known disease which is observed in aging patients is age-related macular degeneration (AMD) [14]. The waveforms of the pupillary light reflex (PLR) can be analyzed in a diagnostic test that allows for differentiation between disorders affecting photoreceptors and disorders affecting retinal ganglion cells, using various signal processing techniques This procedure has been used on both healthy subjects and patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), as a simple diagnostic procedure is required for diagnosis
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