EDEN

Early DEtection of Neurological diseases by eye tracking.

Short description

EDEN aims to revolutionize preventive medicine in neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis, by developing a new approach to the detection of the pathology and the monitoring of its longitudinal evolution using the analysis of eye movement saccades captured on the patients’ smartphone.

In Alzheimer’s disease (AD), there is a progressive cognitive decline leading to dementia and the presence of two pathological proteins in the brain: amyloid and tau. Autopsies and brain imaging studies have shown that AD pathology is seen in the brains of about 30% of people over 65 years of age with normal cognition and we know that slow cognitive decline may be seen in most of them before clinical symptoms appear. These changes remain in the normal range for a long time, preventing diagnosis by cross-sectional assessments. Tracking these slow changes over time is particularly difficult and not applicable to the general population unless automated assessments are developed. Indeed, current technology relies on expensive and invasive medical procedures, such as brain imaging and lumbar punctures, to confirm the presence of Alzheimer’s disease pathology in cognitively impaired patients but not to screen the general population.

EDEN’s objective is to design a new approach to early detection of Alzheimer’s disease pathology and multiple sclerosis in the broadest sense by using eye movement recording when using a smartphone application, paving the way for future early and personalized treatments that will block the development of these diseases.

Time needed : 48 months.

Partners

1 (University) 

Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)  

Belgique 

Status of project

Submitted to the Win2Wal call on March 1, 2022: https://recherche.wallonie.be/Win2Wal_appel