How people look around and what eye movements they use are likely indicators of whether or not they are at risk of cognitive decline and memory loss, a team of Canada- and West Indies-based scientists says.
In a study of 106 people, the team found cognitive and memory decline to be “associated with a decrease in several types of eye movements and gaze patterns, which people use to continually visually sample the environment”.
”The most parsimonious explanation for the described pattern of results is a change in memory,” say the team, which included scientists from the University of Torontoin Canada and the International University of the Health Sciences in Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The findings “may represent a potential marker indicative of cognitive decline”, the team found, after assessing a mix of young adults, healthy older adults, people at risk of cognitive decline, people with mild cognitive impairment and people with amnesia in research.
”Changes in viewing behaviour reflect age- and pathology-related memory decline,” the team says in research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
And while prior research “has documented changes in memory-related viewing behaviour in healthy individuals and those with cognitive and/or neural compromise”, according to the team, such work did not test “how these changes unfold along a continuum of brain health and memory function.” – dpa
