Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago are studying abnormalities in eye movement that may help diagnose mental illness.

How the eyes track a moving object can indicate problems with the neural circuitry of the brain and appears to correspond to some mental disorders.  For example, those who are schizophrenic have trouble keeping their eyes focused on objects that are slow-moving.

John Sweeney, director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine in UIC’s department of psychiatry, and his  colleagues are spearheading a research study that is being funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.  They are studying and cataloging eye movement patterns in patients diagnosed with psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, autism and schizophrenia in order to begin to validate eye movement problems as indicators for a variety of brain diseases.  New technologies allow researchers to precisely measure these abnormalities compared to normal patterns.

“Psychiatric illnesses are not well understood neurologically”, said Sweeney.  The goal of Sweeney and his colleagues is to develop eye movement tests for diagnosing brain disorders.  Tests for many of these illnesses don’t exist today.  For instance there is no scientific bipolar test.  However the field is still in its infancy.

During a child’s development, between ages 8 to 15, the brain undergoes significant changes that affect eye movement control.  Sweeney and his team have been studying eye movement patterns in this age group for 20 years and have been documenting the course of brain and cognitive development during this period.

A variety of tasks test the function of various parts of the brain that control cognitive function and, not necessarily vision, but eye movements.

“Eye movement studies provide a noninvasive way to gain a deeper understanding of the brain dysfunctions at the root of psychiatric illnesses”, said Sweeney.  “We are following patients over time to monitor the progression of their disease and determine whether different treatments are improving their brain and cognitive function.”

Hopefully treatment will be created so that those with mental illness are able to have increasing productivity.

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