Computational Techniques for Eye Movements Analysis towards Supporting Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review <s> Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine 3 <s> We investigated rapid object categorization and, more specifically, the ability to detect a target object within a natural scene in people with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) using a saccadic choice task. It has been suggested that the anatomical pathway likely used to initiate rapid oculomotor responses in the saccadic choice task could involve the Frontal Eye Field, a structure that is part of the dorsal attentional network, in which connectivity is disrupted in AD. Seventeen patients with mild AD and 23 healthy age-matched controls took part in the study. A group of 24 young healthy observers was included as it has been reported that normal aging affects eye movements. Participants were presented with pairs of colored photographs of natural scenes, one containing an animal (the target) and one containing various objects (distracter), displayed for 1 s left and right of fixation. They were asked to saccade to the scene containing an animal. Neither pathology nor age affected temporal (saccade latencies and durations) and spatial (saccade amplitude) parameters of eye movements. Patients with AD were significantly less accurate than age-matched controls, and older participants were less accurate than young observers. The results are interpreted in terms of noisier sensory information and increased uncertainty in relation to deficits in the magnocellular pathway. The results suggest that, even at a mild stage of the pathology, people exhibit difficulties in selecting relevant objects. <s> BIB001 </s> Computational Techniques for Eye Movements Analysis towards Supporting Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease: A Review <s> Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine 3 <s> Alzheimers disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia affecting the growing ageing population today, with prevalence expected to rise over the next 35 years. Clinically, patients exhibit a progressive decline in cognition, memory and social functioning due to deposition of amyloid β (Aβ) protein and intracellular hyperphosphorylated tau protein. These pathological hallmarks of AD are visualised either through neuroimaging, CSF analysis or diagnosed post-mortem. Importantly, neuropathological progression occurs in the eye as well as the brain, and multiple visual changes have been noted in both human and animal models of AD. The eye offers itself as a transparent medium to cerebral pathology and has thus potentiated the development of ocular biomarkers for AD. The use of non-invasive screening such as retinal imaging and visual testing may enable earlier diagnosis in the clinical setting, minimizing invasive and expensive investigations. It also potentially improves disease management and quality of life for AD patients, as an earlier diagnosis allows initiation of medication and treatment. In this review, we explore the evidence surrounding ocular changes in AD and consider the biomarkers currently in development for early diagnosis. <s> BIB002
Examples of these tasks are fixating on a given point  or watching a picture BIB001 . An example of a dependent variable on these studies is the reaction time to perform the given tasks. To examine the research involving eye movements and Alzheimer's disease, we searched in the PubMed© (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) database with the keywords "Alzheimer's disease" and "Eye movements". The database included 165 articles from 1979 to 2017. From the 165 articles, 14 are review articles and 80 articles are not related to AD; focus on atypical subsets of AD or eye movements are not part of the study. From the 165 results, we found that 71 articles are relevant to the research of oculomotor performance of AD patients. The 19.7% (14 articles) from the relevant articles were published in the last 3 years. This shows that research analyzing eye movements is gaining importance in AD studies. Furthermore, recent research shows that the analysis of oculomotor deficits is useful in early detection of AD and also has the potential to be used to assess disease progression BIB002  . Table 1 shows a summary of the research indexed in PubMed since the last 5 years related to eye movements analysis and AD. The summary includes the references and years, the methods used by the researches, the main findings from the studies and information about the participants, and apparatus if present. In the following sections, we describe and categorize conducted research showing an evolution from early attempts towards more naturalistic scenarios.