Impact of Cognitive Demand on Eye Movement Pattern in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Background: Eye-movement behavior has been used as a reliable tool to identify cognitive and behavioral patterns in individuals with different neuropsychiatric disorders including Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Most studies in the field have been dedicated to evaluating eye-movement behavior during cognitive tasks in different protocols using multiple parameters. Objective: We aimed to evaluate the differences of eye-movement behavior in healthy subjects, subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and those with AD in a simple color task with and without cognitive demand. Methods: 91 subjects: 18 AD, 47 MCI, and 26 healthy controls had their oculomotor parameters assessed during baseline (no cognitive demand involved) and during a simple computational color memory task using an eye-tracker. Results: Baseline showed statistically different and heterogeneous results between normal cognition and MCI groups. Familiarization phase of the task could not discriminate between groups in any of the analyzed parameters. AD subjects made longer fixations and visits on distractors, and more frequent fixations and visits on the target areas than other groups during the response phase. Conclusion: Eye-tracking time-related parameters differentiate AD subjects from other groups under cognitive demand even in a simple color memory task.