Eye Movement Abnormalities in Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Background: Despite their high lifetime prevalence, major depressive disorder (MDD) is often difficult to diagnose, and there is a need for useful biomarkers for the diagnosis of MDD. Eye movements are considered a non-invasive potential biomarker for the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. However, eye movement deficits in MDD remain unclear. Thus, we evaluated detailed eye movement measurements to validate its usefulness as a biomarker in MDD.Methods: Eye movements were recorded from 37 patients with MDD and 400 healthy controls (HCs) using the same system at five University hospitals. We administered free-viewing, fixation stability, and smooth pursuit tests, and obtained 35 eye movement measurements. We performed analyses of covariance with group as an independent variable and age as a covariate. In 4 out of 35 measurements with significant group-by-age interactions, we evaluated aging effects. Discriminant analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis were conducted.Results: In the free-viewing test, scanpath length was significantly shorter in MDD (p = 4.2 × 10−3). In the smooth pursuit test, duration of saccades was significantly shorter and peak saccade velocity was significantly lower in MDD (p = 3.7 × 10−3, p = 3.9 × 10−3, respectively). In the fixation stability test, there were no significant group differences. There were significant group differences in the older cohort, but not in the younger cohort, for the number of fixations, duration of fixation, number of saccades, and fixation density in the free-viewing test. A discriminant analysis using scanpath length in the free-viewing test and peak saccade velocity in the smooth pursuit showed MDD could be distinguished from HCs with 72.1% accuracy. In the ROC analysis, the area under the curve was 0.76 (standard error = 0.05, p = 1.2 × 10−7, 95% confidence interval = 0.67–0.85).Conclusion: These results suggest that detailed eye movement tests can assist in differentiating MDD from HCs, especially in older subjects.

Eye Movement Patterns Can Distinguish Schizophrenia From the Major Affective Disorders and Healthy Control Subjects

“…The most common findings are abnormalities of pursuit in all diagnostic groups with schizophrenia patients most impaired. [22][23][24][25][26] Most recently, Clementz et al replicated earlier studies using a test battery that included neuropsychology, eye movements, EEG in a large cohort, and demonstrated excellent discrimination between psychosis and control populations, but none of the physiological biomarkers differentiated the psychosis subgroups. 27 In general, however, results have not shown sufficient sensitivity or specificity to be of clinical value.…”

Depression and Cognitive Impairment: Current Understanding of Its Neurobiology and Diagnosis

“…During the resting stability test, Takahashi 34 found no significant differences between the depressed and healthy control groups. However, sacral amplitudes were found to be greater in depressed patients by.…”

“… 17 Thus, SPEMs are considered one of the stable features of eye movement in depression. In the SPEMs, the significant eye movement characteristics in depression are the duration of saccades, peak saccade velocity 34 and decreased gain. 53 When compared to the healthy controls (HCs), the SPEMs in patients with depression have a high peak speed.…”

Trends in big data analyses by multicenter collaborative translational research in psychiatry

“…65 The latest discoveries in the studies in COCORO have involved differences in eye movement performance between individuals with SZ and individuals with ASD, 66 the association between abnormal scanpath length during free viewing and a disruption of attentional control in SZ patients, 67 and abnormal eye movements in MDD patients. 68 In COCORO, a large database of eye movements, with over 800 subjects, including patients with various psychiatric disorders and healthy subjects, allows us not only to obtain novel findings but also to evaluate the reproducibility of findings. Takahashi et al 69 provided robust and reproducible findings showing the influences of age on eye movements in healthy individuals.…”