Assessing Spatial Processing Deficits in Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) Using Virtual Reality

使用虚拟现实评估脑视觉障碍 (CVI) 的空间处理缺陷

• 批准号: 10005388
• 负责人: Lotfi Merabet
• 金额: $ 25.11万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10005388
• 关键词: Address; Adolescent; Age; Attention; Behavioral; Blindness; Cerebrum; Child; Clinical assessments; Color; Crowding; Development; Elements; Environment; Environmental Risk Factor; Eye Movements; Focus Groups; Goals; Impairment; Individual; Investigation; Measures; Outcome Measure; Participant; Pattern; Performance; Perinatal; Population; Positioning Attribute; Psychophysics; Reaction Time; Rehabilitation therapy; Research; Schools; Stimulus; Structure; Testing; Toy; United States; Vision; Visual; Visual Pathways; Visual impairment; Visuospatial; Walking; Work; base; behavioral study; cortical visual impairment; design; gaze; improved; indexing; interest; novel; primary outcome; sample fixation; tool; virtual; virtual reality; virtual reality environment; visual performance; visual search; visual stimulus; visual tracking; working group

Project Summary The objective of the proposed research is to better characterize and understand functional vision processing deficits in cerebral/cortical visual impairment (CVI), the leading cause of congenital vision loss in the United States and developed world. Perinatal damage to developing visual pathways and structures leads to impaired visual spatial processing abilities, particularly in the setting of high environmental complexity and attention demands. Standard clinical assessments and traditional psychophysical stimuli fail to characterize these functional vision deficits due to their lack of ecological validity. To address this unmet need, we have developed a novel virtual reality (VR) based testing platform to assess visual spatial processing abilities in tasks that approach real world situations. In this cross-sectional behavioral study, performance in children and adolescents with CVI will be compared to age-matched ocular visual impaired (OVI) individuals as well as neuro-typical developed sighted controls. Using recorded eye tracking metrics, we will characterize visual search performance and the effect of manipulating stimulus factors in the VR environment. Our central hypothesis is that VR based assessment will reveal impairments in visual spatial processing that are not characterized by standard clinical assessments. In our first aim, we will compare visual spatial processing abilities using two VR based visual search tasks. The first is a static object visual search task (the “virtual toy box”) in which participants must search for a toy positioned in an array of distractor elements (other toys). The second is a dynamic object visual search task (the “virtual corridor”) in which participants must search for the principal of a school in a crowd of distractor elements (other individuals walking in a school corridor). In both tasks, visual search performance will be assessed by varying the number of surrounding distractor elements. We hypothesize that in contrast to individuals with OVI and sighted controls, CVI participants will show greater impairment in performance as a function of increasing visual task demands associated with environmental complexity. In the second aim, we will characterize the effect of manipulating environmental factors using the VR environment on spatial processing abilities. We hypothesize that compared to baseline performance, individuals with CVI will reveal improved performance when target saliency is enhanced, while manipulations that decrease overall target saliency and/or increase task complexity will be associated with impaired performance. The proposed work is of great significance given the potential for developing a novel and ecologically valid VR based platform that provides for superior assessment of visual functional deficits in individuals based on their type of visual impairment. Furthermore, this investigation will help lay the ground work for the creation of new adaptive tools and strategies designed for an individual's specific developmental and rehabilitative needs. This is of particular significance for individuals with CVI; a population that has been greatly underserved despite its important

项目概要 拟议研究的目的是更好地表征和理解功能性视觉处理 大脑/皮质视力障碍（CVI）缺陷，这是美国先天性视力丧失的主要原因 国家和发达国家。围产期视觉通路和结构发育受损会导致视觉障碍 视觉空间处理能力，特别是在环境复杂性和注意力较高的情况下 需求。标准临床评估和传统的心理物理刺激无法表征这些 由于缺乏生态有效性而导致功能性视力缺陷。为了解决这个未满足的需求，我们 开发了一种新颖的基于虚拟现实（VR）的测试平台来评估视觉空间处理能力 接近现实世界情况的任务。在这项横断面行为研究中，儿童和青少年的表现 患有 CVI 的青少年将与年龄匹配的眼部视力受损 (OVI) 个体以及 神经典型的发达的视力控制。使用记录的眼动追踪指标，我们将描述视觉特征 VR 环境中的搜索性能和操纵刺激因素的效果。我们的中央 假设基于 VR 的评估将揭示视觉空间处理中的损伤，而这些损伤并不是 以标准临床评估为特征。在我们的第一个目标中，我们将比较视觉空间处理 使用两个基于 VR 的视觉搜索任务的能力。第一个是静态对象视觉搜索任务（“虚拟玩具”） 框”），参与者必须在其中寻找位于一系列干扰元素（其他玩具）中的玩具。 第二个是动态对象视觉搜索任务（“虚拟走廊”），参与者必须在其中搜索 学校校长在一群干扰因素（在学校走廊行走的其他人）中。在两者中 任务中，视觉搜索性能将通过改变周围干扰元素的数量来评估。 我们假设，与具有 OVI 和视力正常的对照者相比，CVI 参与者会表现出更大的 随着与环境相关的视觉任务需求的增加，表现会受到损害 复杂。在第二个目标中，我们将使用 VR环境对空间处理能力的影响。我们假设与基线性能相比， 当目标显着性增强时，患有 CVI 的个体将表现出更好的表现，而操纵 降低总体目标显着性和/或增加任务复杂性将与受损相关 表现。鉴于开发新颖且具有潜力的技术，所提出的工作具有重要意义。 基于生态有效的 VR 平台，可对视觉功能缺陷进行高级评估 根据个人的视力障碍类型。此外，这项调查将有助于奠定基础 致力于创建针对个人特定发展而设计的新的适应性工具和策略 和康复需求。这对于 CVI 患者尤其重要；人口已经 尽管它很重要，但服务却严重不足