Oculometry in Neurological Disorders
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Clinical study of reaction times using eye movements in multiple sclerosis and other neurological illnesses
IRAS ID
251163
Contact name
Nicholas Cunniffe
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
It can be argued that clinical neurology is currently handicapped by a lack of genuinely quantitative measures of performance that can be used for diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression and the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions. However, one technique that has proved increasingly useful in this respect is the measurement of abnormal quick eye movements called saccades, which can be measured using a non-invasive portable saccadometer. This device is simply attached to the unrestrained head and, over the course of 10-30 minutes, a large number of eye movements can be recorded and analysed. Having previously been deployed in several neuroscience studies in Cambridge, these eye movements are known to be abnormal in many central nervous system illnesses. But they still have not been characterized in disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS).
This knowledge gap is especially important now as neurophysiological measures of function, such as saccadometry, are emerging as sensitive tests in clinical trials of remyelinating drugs. Such treatments are designed to promote the regeneration of the myelin lining of nerves, protecting these cells from degeneration and, therefore, delaying or even reversing progressive disability. This is widely seen as the greatest unmet need in the landscape of MS research. Visual evoked potentials (VEPs), an established simple and safe non-invasive test of the speed of conduction along the optical pathway, have been used most in clinical trials to date. We will characterize abnormalities in the saccades of MS patients, contrast these to the VEP (the established measure of optic nerve function and demyelination) and to cognitive tests. We will compare our findings between groups of varying levels of disability and control populations including healthy individuals and participants with other neurological illnesses.
REC name
London - Hampstead Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/1284
Date of REC Opinion
31 Jul 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion