New Eye-Tracking Device Helps Measure Brain Function And Potential Brain Injury

Could an eye-tracking device determine brain-function? New findings published in the Journal of Neurosurgery found that this new technology could help to assess the location and dramatically impact brain injury by tracking the eye movements of patients as they watch music videos for less than four minutes.

Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center examined 169 veterans, 157 of whom were neurologically healthy and 12 of whom either showed weakness in the nerves that move the eyes or brain swelling adjacent to the nerves. These are the nerves that affect how the eyes move up and down and side to side.

All participants were required to watch a music video or television content for 220 seconds while researchers measured the ration of horizontal to vertical eye movements. They discovered that in neurologically healthy subjects, the ratios were close to one-to-one, with horizontal movements that equaled vertical movements.

However, 12 participants with nerve damage or swelling in the brain had it pressing down on their nerves, which showed abnormal eye movement rations that correlated to the nerve that was affected.

"We are very excited about the findings because it offers a proof of concept that this technology can detect brain injury and suggest its location," said Dr. Samadani. "One of the reasons that clinical trials for treatment of brain injury have failed in the past is that brain injury is hard to classify and quantitate with existing technologies, in a news release. This invention suggests a potential new method for classifying and quantitating the extent of injury. Once validated, it will both accelerate diagnosis and aid in the development of better treatments."

"These results are extremely exciting because the technology is not overly complicated and, as a result, can move from the bench to the battlefield and other places where it will be easily accessible to all," concluded Dr. Charles Marmar, the Lucius Littauer Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry at NYU Langone, and executive director of NYU Langone's Steven & Alexandra Cohen Veterans Center, which provided funding for the research, via Forbes.

Statistics show that traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects roughly 1.4 million people each year in the United States alone, killing close to 50,000 people. It's also considered the number one fcause of death and disability for Americans under the age of 35, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

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