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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Med. Technol.
Sec. Diagnostic and Therapeutic Devices
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmedt.2024.1477502

Reflexive Eye Saccadic Parameters in Parkinson's Disease

Provisionally accepted
Nemuel Daniel Pah Nemuel Daniel Pah 1,2*Quoc C Ngo Quoc C Ngo 1Nicole Mcconnell Nicole Mcconnell 3Barbara Polus Barbara Polus 1Peter Kempster Peter Kempster 4Arup Bhattacharya Arup Bhattacharya 3Sanjay Raghav Sanjay Raghav 4Dinesh Kumar Dinesh Kumar 1
  • 1 RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • 2 University of Surabaya, Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia
  • 3 Goulburn Valley Health, Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
  • 4 Monash Health, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Abnormal reactive saccade, with reduced saccadic gain, impaired smooth pursuit, and unwarranted reactions are clinically used to assess people with Parkinson's disease (PwPD).However, there are inconsistent findings related to other saccade parameters such as latency and transition times. This study aimed to identify differences in the reflexive saccade parameters of early stage PwPD and aged-matched control (AMC). Methods: In this observational study, the reactive eye-gaze was recorded for 70 participants (42 PwPD) and parameters of reflexive saccades and eye-gaze fluctuations were extracted. These parameters were then statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U-test. Results: Results showed that PwPD had significantly shorter latency than AMC for reflexive saccadic movement away from the center of the screen.The overshoot as a fraction of the screen width, a measure of the inaccuracy in reaching the target, was also significantly higher for PwPD. PwPD had greater horizontal and vertical eye gaze fluctuation with a steady target. The numbers of invalid saccades, i.e. when the gaze goes in the opposite direction from the target movement or is considered anticipatory, were similar for both groups; PwPD with 33.43% and AMC with 25.71%. Discussion: This study shows that there are significant differences in the reflexive saccade of PwPD and AMC measured using an inexpensive eye-tracking device. The presence of invalid saccade trials, and differences between towards and away from screen center, both of which were not considered in earlier studies, may explain the discrepancies between earlier studies. The outcome of this study has the potential to be made a device that would assist neurologists in the assessment of PwPD.

    Keywords: Parkinson's disease, saccadic, latency, eye gaze, reflexive saccade

    Received: 07 Aug 2024; Accepted: 13 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Pah, Ngo, Mcconnell, Polus, Kempster, Bhattacharya, Raghav and Kumar. 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) or licensor 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.

    * Correspondence: Nemuel Daniel Pah, RMIT University, Melbourne, 3000, Victoria, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.