Tracking Ocular Movements to Detect Respiratory Tract Infections
AIM: We aim to use eye movement to probe sensorimotor and cognitive function to discover specific biomarkers of infectious disease in COVID-19 patients. BACKGROUND: Video oculography has been applied as a simple, non-invasive technique to develop biomarkers for non-communicable diseases such as Alzh...
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2024-12-01
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| Series: | Journal of Global Antimicrobial Resistance |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213716524002832 |
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| Summary: | AIM: We aim to use eye movement to probe sensorimotor and cognitive function to discover specific biomarkers of infectious disease in COVID-19 patients. BACKGROUND: Video oculography has been applied as a simple, non-invasive technique to develop biomarkers for non-communicable diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's Disease. Knowledge of cortical and subcortical brain circuits allows for changes to be mapped to specific brain circuits if the pathophysiology of an infectious agent includes neurological effects. METHODS: Student participants were recruited from the University of Dundee (ethics approved). Participants were stratified according to their SARS-CoV-2 infection status. Video-based eye tracking was performed with a VT3 Mini Eye-Tracker at 60 Hz. A pro-saccade task was used to elicit eye movement to an abrupt-onset, randomly-sited peripheral target. A spoken language comprehension task was presented using a Visual World Paradigm framework. Parameters recorded included time to first fixation, gaze frequency and pupil diameter. RESULTS: Time to first fixation for the prosaccade task was significantly faster in COVID-19 patients than that of the uninfected controls: 236±0.13ms vs 255±1.5ms (p=0.01 df=43). The pupil diameter in COVID-19 patients widens 30% more than that of the uninfected controls: (p=0.012 df=838). The number of gazes on a target vs. distractor images elicited by a verbal instruction was 18% lower in COVID-19 patients (p<0.05 df=87). Conclusions: Using eye tracking, we demonstrated that viral infection influences eye movements and pupillary response in reaction to rapid onset visual and auditory stimuli and can be successfully employed as biomarkers for screening for infectious disease. |
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| ISSN: | 2213-7165 |