Method to Quickly Map Multifocal Pupillary Response Fields (mPRF) Using Frequency Tagging

Abstract

We present a method for mapping multifocal Pupillary Response Fields in a short amount of time using a visual stimulus covering 40° of the visual angle divided into nine contiguous sectors simultaneously modulated in luminance at specific, incommensurate, temporal frequencies. We test this multifocal Pupillary Frequency Tagging (mPFT) approach with young healthy participants (N = 36) and show that the spectral power of the sustained pupillary response elicited by 45 s of fixation of this multipartite stimulus reflects the relative contribution of each sector/frequency to the overall pupillary response. We further analyze the phase lag for each temporal frequency as well as several global features related to pupil state. Test/retest performed on a subset of participants indicates good repeatability. We also investigate the existence of structural (RNFL)/functional (mPFT) relationships. We then summarize the results of clinical studies conducted with mPFT on patients with neuropathies and retinopathies and show that the features derived from pupillary signal analyses, the distribution of spectral power in particular, are homologous to disease characteristics and allow for sorting patients from healthy participants with excellent sensitivity and specificity. This method thus appears as a convenient, objective, and fast tool for assessing the integrity of retino-pupillary circuits as well as idiosyncrasies and permits to objectively assess and follow-up retinopathies or neuropathies in a short amount of time.