New eye tracking technology may help measure severity of concussions

By Staff Reporter - 29 Jan '15 14:11PM

Researchers have discovered a new eye-tracking technology could help doctors measure the severity of concussions and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

The new eye-tracking device was originally developed by Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the Cohen Veterans Center to assess eye movement in veterans of the long Middle East conflicts suspected of suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI), concussion or other forms of brain injury.

Now researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center tracked the pupil movements of 75 trauma patients and 64 healthy control patients were tracked and compared for over 200 seconds while the participants watched a music video for a few minutes.

"Concussion is a condition that has been plagued by the lack of an objective diagnostic tool which, in turn, has helped drive confusion and fears among those affected and their families," says lead investigator Uzma Samadani, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Departments of Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Physiology at NYU Langone.

"Our new eye-tracking methodology may be the missing piece to help better diagnose concussion severity, enable testing of diagnostics and therapeutics, and help assess recovery, such as when a patient can safely return to work following a head injury."

The more severe the concussion, the worse a patient's eye movement problems, according to the study. Results were published online Jan. 29 in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

"The importance of this study is that it establishes a reliable test and a 'biological' marker for detecting concussion," said Dr. M. Sean Grady, chair of the neurosurgery department at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, according to WebMd. He was not involved in the study.

"Since concussion can occur without loss of consciousness, this can be particularly important in sideline evaluations in athletics or in military settings where individuals are highly motivated to return to activity and may minimize their symptoms. More work is needed to establish its sensitivity and specificity, but it is very promising," Grady said.