A newly developed free software called DeepMReye is usedartificial intelligence for diagnosisto directly predict eye position and eye movements from MRI images. According to the developers, the precise measurement of eye movements during an MRI scan can enable a novel diagnosis of brain diseases. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Kavli Institute for Systemic Neuroscience in Trondheim were involved in the project.
Can complex eye tracking be replaced by free software?
To record eye movements, research institutions typically use a so-called eye tracker. This is a sensor technology that allows them to project, reflect and ultimately measure infrared light onto the retina. However, due to the high costs and time-consuming effort, the procedure is often not feasible. Now the neuroscientists have recently presented their easy-to-use and free software in a new study. This means it is now possible to track patients' visual behavior during an MRI examination even without a camera. The neural network used recognizes certain patterns in the MRI signal of the eyes. This allows researchers to predict where the person is looking.Artificial intelligencehelps a lot here because scientists often don't know exactly which patterns to look for.
The new free software allows researchers to use older studies and data sets to answer completely new questions. In addition, the method can also predict when the eyes are open or closed. The technology can track eye movements even when the eyes remain closed. Accordingly, such eye tracking would also have to be carried out when the people being examined are sleeping. According to the study authors, the new technology is suitable for clinical applications, such as in sleep laboratories. In this way, it would be possible to examine eye movements in different stages of sleep. In addition, traditional eye tracking cameras were rarely used in blind patients because accurate calibration was very cumbersome. In such cases, DeepMReye could be calibrated by artificial intelligence with the help of healthy subjects and then used in studies on blind patients, according to the authorsthis study. The free software is an open source application and can be used byGitHubbe downloaded.
