A digital measure of eye movements during reading sensitively captures oculomotor and speech dysfunction, early changes, and disease progression in ataxias.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Sensitive behavioral measures are needed for clinical trials in ataxias and other neurodegenerative diseases. We hypothesized that quantitative analysis of eye movements during a natural multi-component task (passage reading) could produce a measure capable of capturing subclinical signs and disease progression.

Methods

Binocular gaze sampled at 1000 Hz was collected from 102 individuals with ataxia (including 36 spinocerebellar ataxias, 12 Friedreich's ataxia, and 5 multiple system atrophy) and 70 healthy controls. Longitudinal data were available for 26 participants with ataxia in the ongoing natural history study. The Reading Eye Abnormality Digital (READ) score was developed by training a regression model to aggregate saccade and fixation kinematics.

Results

SUBMITTER: Oubre B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11759587 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature