Modeling of ocular dynamics for the evaluation of cognitive performance
Our research group, with the collaboration of Dr. Reinhold Kliegl of the Department of Psychology of the University of Potsdam (Germany), of Dr. Oscar Colombo of the Municipal Hospital of Acute “Leónidas Lucero” of Bahía Blanca, Drs. Luis Politi and Nora Rotstein of the INIBIBB (Biochemical Research Institute of Baíha Blanca), of Dr. David Orozco of the Bahiense Private Clinic of Bahía Blanca, of Dr. Facundo Manes of INECO Favaloro Bs. As. And of Dr. Salvador Guinjoan of the FLENI Bs. As., Has been developing a methodology to measure cognitive performance based on the modeling of the ocular movement registered before suitably designed stimuli.
The developed methodology allows to carry out an objective evaluation (not dependent on the professional who carries it out), without stressing the person being evaluated (eg, silent reading), it is not invasive (eye movements are registered with a video camera high speed that has the eyetracker) and makes it possible to measure the cognitive performance of the person. The developed technique allows to discriminate normal cognitive deterioration by age from that produced by other neurodegenerative pathologies, and subsequently the longitudinal (periodic temporal) follow-up. Therefore, the main general objective of this project is to continue analyzing the cognitive capacity of people and sharpen the classification in well-defined pathologies. The scope of the techniques developed so far will be studied, in particular, what is the minimum deterioration detectable by them and will seek to develop new strategies to address the issue from the experience gained using visualization and machine learning techniques (Maching Learning).
To do this, we will seek to develop more rigorous models of ocular dynamics, the application of the techniques will be evaluated to a greater number of people, both patients and healthy, and a temporal follow-up of them will be carried out. The models developed so far use the information from the sacral movements and this new project also provides for the use of information from the processing of microsaccadic movements (ie, small ballistic movements of the eye that maintain the attentional focus and prevent the image fades from the fovea).
On the other hand we will seek to develop new information processing methodologies that allow us to identify essential parameters associated with the functionalities that link the different cerebral areas of interest from visual stimuli, the corresponding eye movements and their relationship with the use of resources human cognitives, in search of a more rigorous systemic approach.