Abstract
Introduction: Eye tracking provides a convenient and promising biological marker of cognitive impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease. Here we report a longitudinal study of saccadic eye movements in a sample of patients with Alzheimer's disease and elderly control participants who were assessed at the start of the study and followed up 12-months later.Methods: Eye movements were measured in the standard gap and overlap paradigms, to examine the longitudinal trends in the ability to disengage attention from a visual target.Results: Overall patients with Alzheimer's disease had slower reaction times than the control group. However, after 12-months, both groups showed faster and comparable reductions in reaction times to the gap, compared to the overlap stimulus. Interestingly, there was a general improvement for both groups with more accurately directed saccades and speeding of reaction times after 12-months.Conclusions: These findings point to the value of longer-term studies and follow-up assessment to ascertain the effects of dementia on oculomotor control.
Highlights
Eye tracking provides a convenient and promising biological marker of cognitive impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease
Several studies have reported a dysfunction in the disengagement of attention in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) (Della Sala et al, 1992; Parasuraman et al, 1992; Parasuraman and Haxby, 1993; Scinto et al, 1994; Perry and Hodges, 1999; Baddeley et al, 2001; Solfrizzi et al, 2002; Tales et al, 2002) which appears to coincide with the progressive decline in working memory and executive function
The “gap” effect was highly significant [F(1, 35) = 86.45, p = 0.001]; overall both groups revealed slower reaction times in the overlap, compared to the gap task. Both groups benefited from the gap effect: At the baseline assessment the control group “gap” effect = 46 ms; whilst the “gap” effect for the AD patients = 48 ms; At 12months the control group revealed a “gap” effect = 54 ms and the dementia patients showed a “gap” effect of 65 ms
Summary
Eye tracking provides a convenient and promising biological marker of cognitive impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease. We report a longitudinal study of saccadic eye movements in a sample of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and elderly control participants who were assessed at the start of the study and followed up 12-months later. Eye tracking provides a convenient and promising biological marker of cognitive impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease (Crawford et al, 2013), and is likely to enhance the current procedures for early diagnosis and long-term monitoring of disease progression. Several studies have reported a dysfunction in the disengagement of attention in AD (Della Sala et al, 1992; Parasuraman et al, 1992; Parasuraman and Haxby, 1993; Scinto et al, 1994; Perry and Hodges, 1999; Baddeley et al, 2001; Solfrizzi et al, 2002; Tales et al, 2002) which appears to coincide with the progressive decline in working memory and executive function
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