NCT06965673

Assessment of Eye Movements in Stroke Patients and Closed-loop Intervention

Eye-movement Dynamics During Free Viewing as a Biomarker for Assessment of Visuospatial Functions and for Closed-loop Rehabilitation in Stroke

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: IRCCS San Camillo, Venezia, Italy · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The current study evaluates first the assumption that eye-movements during free viewing behavior are potential biomarkers of visuospatial deficits in stroke population. Second, it assesses the feasibility of a novel visual exploration training to ameliorate visuospatial deficits, by exploiting an auditory biofeedback system coupled with online parsed fixations.

Detailed description

This study is divided into two parts concerning the diagnostic and treatment of visuospatial deficits in patients affected by unilateral stroke. Eye movements indices during free viewing of natural scenes will be correlated to the standard neuropsychological evaluation, describing the cognitive, motor and functional spectrum of patient status. Moreover, functional and structural neuroimaging will be exploited to identify neural correlates of patient eye movements characteristics. Ultimately, a subsample of randomly assigned participants, at the IRCCS San Camillo, will undergo a novel visual exploration training, in addition to the standard rehabilitation. This protocol consists of natural scene exploration guided by an auditory biofeedback system which tracks online parsed fixations. Concretely, the training maneuvers exploration toward salient regions of the presented image, as indicated by a normative sample. Changes in free viewing behavior, neuropsychological assessment and neuroimaging will be discussed compared to an active control group and a healthy sample.

Conditions

• Stroke

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Visual exploration training	Visual exploration of natural scenes guided by closed-loop auditory biofeedback through eye-tracking
BEHAVIORAL	Standard neuropsychological rehabilitation	Standard rehabilitation delivered at the IRCCS San Camillo hospital

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-04-01
• Primary completion: 2025-06-01
• Completion: 2025-06-01
• First posted: 2025-05-11
• Last updated: 2025-05-11

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Italy