Abstract
Background: The analysis of eye movements (EM) by eye-tracking has been carried out for several decades to investigate mood regulation, emotional information processing, and psychomotor disturbances in depressive disorders.Method: A systematic review of all English language PubMed articles using the terms “saccadic eye movements” OR “eye-tracking” AND “depression” OR “bipolar disorders” was conducted using PRISMA guidelines. The aim of this review was to characterize the specific alterations of EM in unipolar and bipolar depression.Results: Findings regarding psychomotor disturbance showed an increase in reaction time in prosaccade and antisaccade tasks in both unipolar and bipolar disorders. In both disorders, patients have been reported to have an attraction for negative emotions, especially for negative pictures in unipolar and threatening images in bipolar disorder. However, the pattern could change with aging, elderly unipolar patients disengaging key features of sad and neutral stimuli. Methodological limitations generally include small sample sizes with mixed unipolar and bipolar depressed patients.Conclusion: Eye movement analysis can be used to discriminate patients with depressive disorders from controls, as well as patients with bipolar disorder from patients with unipolar depression. General knowledge concerning psychomotor alterations and affective regulation strategies associated with each disorder can also be gained thanks to the analysis. Future directions for research on eye movement and depression are proposed in this review.
Highlights
The study of eye movements (EM) in psychiatry and psychopathology began in 1908 based on the pioneer research of Allen Ross Diefendorf and Raymond Dodge
In the case of affective disorders, EM studies may help specify the extent of psychomotor symptoms—which are usually reported across the spectrum of depressive disorders (Bennabi et al, 2013), and improve the understanding of mood regulation and emotional information processing as well as the prediction of outcome after treatment initiation
In 1993, Sereno et al investigated saccadic performance in affective disorder groups composed by depressed and bipolar patients. They found no difference between affective disorder, schizophrenic and control participants for RT and ER in gap and no-gap conditions
Summary
The study of eye movements (EM) in psychiatry and psychopathology began in 1908 based on the pioneer research of Allen Ross Diefendorf and Raymond Dodge. The development of sophisticated eye tracking technologies such as the infra-red limbus or pupil detection method and the camera using the corneal reflection to measure eye movement (Young and Sheena, 1975) facilitated the study of EM in mental disorders. This technique enables to clarify some diagnoses as well as to assess the effect of drugs during the course of a disease and the recoveries or adaptations during treatment. The analysis of eye movements (EM) by eye-tracking has been carried out for several decades to investigate mood regulation, emotional information processing, and psychomotor disturbances in depressive disorders
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