Dokuz Eylül University, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Neurosciences, Izmir, Türkiye; Dokuz Eylül University, Department of Neurology, Unit of Neuropsychology, Izmir, Türkiye.
Dokuz Eylül University, Institute of Health Sciences, Department of Neurosciences, Izmir, Türkiye.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2023 Aug;190:84-93. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2023.06.009. Epub 2023 Jun 23.
Available evidence shows that Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients display inefficiencies in visual scanning of their surroundings, directing their attention towards non-relevant aspects of scenes. Not much is known about eye movements during visual scanning in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Notably, a consensus has yet to be reached on this issue. Furthermore, prior research has indicated the existence of visual attention deficits in individuals diagnosed with AD and aMCI. The objective of this study was to examine the visual scanning patterns of individuals diagnosed with AD, aMCI, and healthy controls (HC) when viewing various scenes. Thirty patients with AD, 32 aMCI, and 32 HC were included in the study. A set of 30 real-life scene images were presented to the participants in the visual scanning task. Participants' eye events were monitored using the EyeLink 1000 Plus in this task. The results indicate a significant reduction in total fixation duration, number of scanned areas, fixation counts, and saccade counts in AD as compared to those with aMCI and HC. The research did not reveal any significant statistical differences in eye parameters between the aMCI and HC groups. This study found abnormalities in visual scanning in AD compared to aMCI and HC. Visual scanning patterns of aMCI patients were not different from HC. Previous studies have specifically shown visual attention difficulties in AD and MCI. Our findings may be related to visual attention difficulties in AD. In addition, this study is the first to examine visual scanning behaviour with real-world images in AD and aMCI.
现有的证据表明，阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者在周围环境的视觉扫描中效率低下，注意力集中在场景的非相关方面。对于遗忘型轻度认知障碍（aMCI）患者在视觉扫描期间的眼球运动，我们知之甚少。值得注意的是，在这个问题上尚未达成共识。此外，先前的研究表明，AD 和 aMCI 患者存在视觉注意力缺陷。本研究旨在检查 AD、aMCI 和健康对照组（HC）个体在观看各种场景时的视觉扫描模式。该研究纳入了 30 名 AD 患者、32 名 aMCI 患者和 32 名 HC。在视觉扫描任务中，向参与者呈现了一组 30 张真实场景图像。在这项任务中，使用 EyeLink 1000 Plus 监测参与者的眼动事件。结果表明，与 aMCI 和 HC 相比，AD 患者的总注视持续时间、扫描区域数量、注视计数和扫视计数显著减少。研究未发现 aMCI 和 HC 组之间眼参数存在显著统计学差异。与 aMCI 和 HC 相比，本研究发现 AD 患者的视觉扫描存在异常。aMCI 患者的视觉扫描模式与 HC 没有区别。先前的研究专门表明 AD 和 MCI 存在视觉注意困难。我们的发现可能与 AD 中的视觉注意困难有关。此外，这项研究首次在 AD 和 aMCI 中使用真实世界图像检查视觉扫描行为。
