Effects of Alzheimer’s Disease on visual target detection: a “peripheral bias”

Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

Tobias Nef¹  Dario Cazzoli¹  Nicole Gruber²  Flurin Feuerstein²  Giuseppe Angelo Zito²  Vanessa Vallejo²  Urs Peter Mosimann³  René Martin Müri⁴  Luca Rampa⁵ 

[1] ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research;Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation Group;Private Hospital Wyss;University Hospital Inselspital;University Hospital of Psychiatry;

关键词: Eye Movements;    visual attention;    Alzheimer’s disease;    target detection;    Visual Exploration;    Search strategy;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnagi.2016.00200

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Visual exploration is an omnipresent activity in everyday life, and might represent an important determinant of visual attention deficits in patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The present study aimed at investigating visual search performance in AD patients, in particular target detection in the far periphery, in daily living scenes. Eighteen AD patients and twenty healthy controls participated in the study. They were asked to freely explore a hemispherical screen, covering ± 90°, and to respond to targets presented at 10°, 30°, and 50° eccentricity, while their eye movements were recorded. Compared to healthy controls, AD patients recognized less targets appearing in the center. No difference was found in target detection in the periphery. This pattern was confirmed by the fixation distribution analysis. These results show a neglect for the central part of the visual field for AD patients and provide new insights by mean of a search task involving a larger field of view.

【 授权许可】

Unknown