An eye-tracking controlled neuropsychological battery for cognitive assessment in neurological diseases

Poletti, Barbara; Carelli, Laura; Solca, Federica; Lafronza, Annalisa; Pedroli, Elisa; Faini, Andrea; Zago, Stefano; Ticozzi, Nicola; Ciammola, Andrea; Morelli, Claudia; Meriggi, P.; Cipresso, Pietro; Lulé, Dorothée; Ludolph, Albert C.; Riva, Giuseppe; Silani, Vincenzo

doi:10.1007/s10072-016-2807-3

Cited by 23 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 32 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This study shows the feasibility and reliability of a mobile eye-tracking screening tool based on the ECAS which can be easily administered even at the patient's bedside in a time frame of usually less than one hour. As in previous studies with healthy subjects (15,24,25) and ALS patients (16), there was a strong association between performance in both modalities of cognitive testing (oculomotor and paper-and-pencil) with satisfying correlations between scores in all relevant domains of both versions of the ECAS in the healthy control and in the patient sample.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

A first approach to a neuropsychological screening tool using eye-tracking for bedside cognitive testing based on the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen

Keller

Krimly

Bauer

et al. 2017

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

A first approach to a neuropsychological screening tool using eye-tracking for bedside cognitive testing based on the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen

Keller

Krimly

Bauer

et al. 2017

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This study shows the feasibility and reliability of a mobile eye-tracking screening tool based on the ECAS which can be easily administered even at the patient's bedside in a time frame of usually less than one hour. As in previous studies with healthy subjects (15,24,25) and ALS patients (16), there was a strong association between performance in both modalities of cognitive testing (oculomotor and paper-andpencil) with satisfying correlations between scores in all relevant domains of both versions of the ECAS in the healthy control and in the patient sample.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Functional reorganization during cognitive function tasks in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Keller

Böhm

Aho-Özhan

et al. 2017

Brain Imaging and Behavior

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cognitive deficits, especially in the domains of social cognition and executive function including verbal fluency, are common in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. There is yet sparse understanding of pathogenesis of the underlying, possibly adaptive, cortical patterns. To address this issue, 65 patients with ALS and 33 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls were tested on cognitive and behavioral deficits with the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), cortical activity during social cognition and executive function tasks (theory of mind, verbal fluency, alternation) adapted from the ECAS was determined in a 3 Tesla scanner. Compared to healthy controls, ALS patients performed worse in the ECAS overall (p < 0.001) and in all of its subdomains (p < 0.02), except memory. Imaging revealed altered cortical activation during all tasks, with patients consistently showing a hyperactivation in relevant brain areas compared to healthy controls. Additionally, cognitively high performing ALS patients consistently exhibited more activation in frontal brain areas than low performing patients and behaviorally unimpaired patients presented with more neuronal activity in orbitofrontal areas than behaviorally impaired patients. In conclusion, hyperactivation in fMRI cognitive tasks seems to represent an early adaptive process to overcome neuronal cell loss in relevant brain areas. The hereby presented cortical pattern change might suggest that, once this loss passes a critical threshold and no cortical buffering is possible, clinical representation of cognitive and behavioral impairment evolves. Future studies might shed light on the pattern of cortical pattern change in the course of ALS.

show abstract

“…In addition, a battery of neuropsychological tests, previously adapted to oculomotor control by means of ET technology, was employed for evaluating language (Token Test), attentional abilities (d2 Test), executive functions (Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices—RCPM, Modified Card Sorting Test–MCST, Iowa Gambling task–IGT) and social cognition (Reading the Mind in the eyes test–RME) [ 28 , 29 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Acquired signals were also analyzed using the following off-line tools: Experiment Builder (SR Research, Ottawa, Canada), Excel (Microsoft, Redmond, USA) and custom programs written in MATLAB 7.2 (The Mathworks, Inc.; Natick, MA). A training phase was performed, as described in previous works [ 28 , 29 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arrows and Colors Cognitive Test (ACCT): A new verbal-motor free cognitive measure for executive functions in ALS

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background and objectiveThe presence of executive deficits in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is well established, even if standardized measures are difficult to obtain due to progressive physical disability of the patients. We present clinical data concerning a newly developed measure of cognitive flexibility, administered by means of Eye-Tracking (ET) technology in order to bypass verbal-motor limitations.Methods21 ALS patients and 21 age-and education-matched healthy subjects participated in an ET-based cognitive assessment, including a newly developed test of cognitive flexibility (Arrows and Colors Cognitive Test–ACCT) and other oculomotor-driven measures of cognitive functions. A standard screening of frontal and working memory abilities and global cognitive efficiency was administered to all subjects, in addition to a psychological self-rated assessment. For ALS patients, a clinical examination was also performed.ResultsACCT successfully discriminated between patients and healthy controls, mainly concerning execution times obtained at different subtests. A qualitative analysis performed on error distributions in patients highlighted a lower prevalence of perseverative errors, with respect to other type of errors. Correlations between ACCT and other ET-based frontal-executive measures were significant and involved different frontal sub-domains. Limited correlations were observed between ACCT and standard ‘paper and pencil’ cognitive tests.ConclusionsThe newly developed ET-based measure of cognitive flexibility could be a useful tool to detect slight frontal impairments in non-demented ALS patients by bypassing verbal-motor limitations through the oculomotor-driven administration. The findings reported in the present study represent the first contribution towards the development of a full verbal-motor free executive test for ALS patients.

show abstract

An eye-tracking controlled neuropsychological battery for cognitive assessment in neurological diseases

Cited by 23 publications

References 32 publications

A first approach to a neuropsychological screening tool using eye-tracking for bedside cognitive testing based on the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen

A first approach to a neuropsychological screening tool using eye-tracking for bedside cognitive testing based on the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen

Functional reorganization during cognitive function tasks in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

The Arrows and Colors Cognitive Test (ACCT): A new verbal-motor free cognitive measure for executive functions in ALS

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About