Development of a pediatric oculomotor and vestibular normative database as an essential tool for objective evaluation of concussion and return-to-school/play

AbstractIn current clinical practicediagnosis of mild traumatic brain injurymTBIconcussion and decision making regarding return to school play work rely heavily on self reported symptoms and or on other neurocognitive tests assessmentsThese assessments require baseline testingwhich is not commonly donethus greatly limiting their usefulnessAdditionally for the pediatric populationcontinuous and rapid brain development suggest baseline testing should be done more frequently than in adultsThereforethere is a large unmet need for developing appropriate tools to evaluate brain dysfunction and recovery following mTBI concussion that are not baseline dependent and take into account age dependent maturational changesEye movement has been traditionally used as a non invasive observational tool for understanding neural developmentNeuro KineticsFDA cleared I Portaltechnology assesses oculomotorvestibularreaction time and cognitiveOVRT Ccapabilities and provides a highly accurate objective measure of neural functions and brain injury induced disturbancesThe technology consists of head mounted virtual reality goggles equipped with high speed cameras to capture eye movementsa battery of specific OVRT C tests that probe different parts of the brain and a software platformcalled VESTTMthat uses sophisticated algorithms to provide OVRT C parameters that quantify neural performanceThis application seeks funding for extending the applicability of this technology to the pediatric populationPhase I of the application is to develop a new child prototype goggle and age appropriate software instructionsdesign and algorithmsPhase II is to collect normative OVRT C data from healthy males and femalesagestoThis database will reflect normal development as reported by the OVRT C tests and will serve as a tool for evaluating effects of mTBI concussionsmonitoring recovery and aiding in the return to school play decisionAdditionallyit can serve as an objective screening tool for mental health and neurological conditions that start early in childhoodas well as for assessing treatment efficacy Project Narrative Oculomotorvestibularreaction time and cognitiveOVRT Cassessments can provide objective measures of neural developmentThis grant proposes to construct a normative OVRT C database for pediatric populationsagesthat will help clinicians understand the natural history of neural functional development from agestoand aid in the identification of brain deficits when compared to norms from the appropriate age and gender groups that evolve from this studyThese norms can be put to immediate use for mild traumatic brain injurymTBIconcussion detectionminimizingor potentially eliminatingthe need for baseline testing and possibly serve as a return to school play decision tool