Smart & automatic analysis of ocular nystagmus for tracking patients and astronaut health.

将患者带到医疗诊所或医院急诊室的第二大主诉是头晕或恶心(仅在一家麦吉尔医院，每年约有1,400名患者)。导致这些症状的原因有很多：我们专注于评估感觉缺陷的新工具。来自内耳前庭传感器的信号(头部运动)和来自视网膜的信号(视觉目标)共同驱动控制平衡和眼睛运动的大脑电路。对前庭和视觉刺激的反应的功能极限是通过眼睛记录来测量的，但测试眼睛反射的方法几十年来一直没有改变，使用大型而昂贵的设备，并使用与当前神经科学知识不相容的主观标准来分析眼睛记录。另一个复杂的问题是，眼睛反射是一种混合反应--在运动补偿和重新定向到一个新的空间目标之间来回切换，每个都有不同的动态。因此，改进诊断程序的一个主要障碍是缺乏对眼震节段进行自动分类的现代技术，这限制了可行的测试方案。

The second most frequent complaint bringing patients to medical clinics or hospital ERs is dizziness or nausea (~1,400 patients/yr at just one McGill hospital). There are many causes of these symptoms: we focus on new tools to evaluate sensory deficits. Signals from vestibular sensors in the inner ear (head motion), and from the retina (visual goals), co-drive brain circuits that control balance and eye movements. The functional limits of responses to vestibular and visual stimuli are measured with eye recordings, but methods to test ocular reflexes have not changed for decades, using large and expensive equipment, and analyzing eye records with subjective criteria incompatible with current neuro-scientific knowledge. Another complication is that ocular reflexes are hybrid responses - switching back and forth between compensation for motion and redirection to a new spatial goal, each with different dynamics. Hence a major impediment for improvement of diagnostic procedures is the lack of modern techniques for automatic classification of nystagmus segments, which restricts feasible test protocols.