A COMBINED VISUAL DISPLAY AND EYE TRACKING SYSTEM FOR HIGH-FIELD fMRI STUDIES

Paul Gamlin and Donald Twieg
Vision Science Research Center
University of Alabama at Birmingham

CONTACT INFORMATION

Paul Gamlin
Vision Science Research Center
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35294
Phone: (205) 934-0322
Fax : (205) 934-5725
Email: pgamlin@vision.vsrc.uab.edu

WWW PAGE

http://vision.vsrc.uab.edu/members/gamlin.html

PROGRAM AREA

Virtual Environments

KEYWORDS

eye movements; functional magnetic resonance imaging; visual display; eye tracking; saccades; disparity; vergence.

PROJECT SUMMARY

The proposed activity involves the collaboration between a neuroscientist, Dr. Paul Gamlin, and a biomedical engineer, Dr. Donald Twieg. Two major activities are proposed, neither of which could be conducted by either individual on their own. The technological goal of the project is the design, development, and implementation of a combined high resolution binocular display and eye tracking system for use in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of the human brain at 4.1 Tesla. Dr. Gamlin has extensive experience with the design and construction of visual displays for studies of vergence and accommodation in alert, behaving primates. Dr. Gamlin will use this experience to design and construct the planned optical and eye tracking system with assistance from Dr. Twieg and the staff of the Electronics and Machine Shop facilities of the UAB Vision Science Research Center. Specifically, they will develop and construct an optical system to relay high resolution video images to the subject and to optically relay an image of the subject's pupil to a point where it can tracked using a video-based eye tracker. The scientific goal of this project will be to employ the developed optical system and eye tracker for a series of investigations using fMRI at 4.1T to study the neural control of saccadic eye movements in humans. Dr. Gamlin will have primary responsibility for the behavioral design of the proposed experiments. Dr. Twieg will have primary responsibility for fMRI acquisition on the 4.1T UAB MRI system, for reconstruction procedures, for the statistical analysis, for the display of fMRI images, and for the procedures for registration of images will be used. Subsequent to acquisition, appropriate processing software will be used to interpret and filter the fMRI data in terms of the eye position data from the eye-tracking apparatus. The optical system that is developed will be invaluable in all oculomotor and vision-related fMRI studies and in many fMRI studies where non-verbal responses are required. It will allow visual studies of stereopsis and depth perception to be easily added to the repertoire of visual studies currently being conducted It will also allow oculomotor studies of saccades, smooth pursuit, optokinetic nystagmus, vergence, and accommodative eye movements to be conducted. A system with this capability will thus find broad application in fMRI studies at many institutions. Development of this system will therefore not only significantly enhance fMRI studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham but will also allow investigators at other institutions to be provided with the technology to significantly enhance their fMRI studies.

PROJECT REFERENCES

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AREA BACKGROUND

Recent developments in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allow researchers to investigate the functional activation of the brain that is associated with particular sensory, cognitive, and motor functions. To date, most of these functional MRI (fMRI) studies have been conducted at relatively low magnetic field strengths, but we can achieve higher resolutions using higher field strengths. Also, although a number of studies have investigated functional activation of the brain by various visual stimuli and during certain eye movements, few of these studies have attempted to confirm fixation accuracy or eye movement performance. This is a shortcoming of these studies, because if you cannot be sure that the subject is maintaining fixation or looking at the required target, it is hard to interpret the results of the experiment. Furthermore, in these studies, the optical systems did not permit the eyes to view high-resolution images. These technical problems must be remedied if we are to better understand how the human visual and eye movement systems operate. Therefore, we are developing and building a high-resolution optical and eye-tracking system to be used in a high-field MRI system. This system will be invaluable to all eye movement and vision-related fMRI studies, and will result in significant advances in our understanding of the workings of the human brain.

AREA REFERENCES