Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 23, 2025
Vision Training Methods for Sports Concussion Mitigation and Management
Published on: May 5, 2015
Investigating the Utility of the BrainEye Smartphone Eye Tracking Application and Platform in Concussion Management
Meaghan Clough1, Jade Bartholomew2, Owen White2
1Department of Neuroscience, Central Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, 3004, Australia. meaghan.clough@monash.edu.
Background:
Concussion is a common consequence of engaging in collision sports, with the often mild, transient nature of symptoms posing a considerable diagnostic and management challenge. This challenge is vastly magnified for athletes competing at grassroots/non-professional levels, who lack field side access to medical expertise in the assessment of a player's capacity to continue playing or need for further medical attention. The aim of this pilot study was to evaluate the utility of the BrainEye application and hardware (BrainEye platform) as a concussion screening tool, specifically determining (1) its sensitivity and specificity with respect to identifying an individual with a clinically diagnosed concussion, (2) the stability of the platform through test completion/failure rates, and (3) its usability through operator feedback and uptake/integration into concussion management protocols.
Results:
Using the BrainEye platform, 348 male professional Australian Rules footballers from 10 Australian Football League (AFL) clubs completed 4 simple ocular protocols (pupillary light reflex, PLR; smooth pursuit eye movements, SMP; near-point convergence, NPC; horizontal gaze nystagmus, HGN) at baseline, prior to the onset of the 2022 AFL season, and following the clinical diagnosis of concussion throughout the season during a game/training/practice (n = 11 players immediately following a concussive event, and on 14 occasions 2-7 days following a concussive event). Although club participation and protocol adherence rates were suboptimal, with clubs citing COVID-19 restrictions and cumbersome hardware set-up as primary reasons for non-participation/missing data, a BrainEye score that derived from an algorithm combining smooth pursuit and pupillary light reflex measures, achieved 100% sensitivity relative to clinical judgement, in identifying all instances of clinically diagnosed concussion, and 85% specificity.
Conclusions:
Collectively, the results of this study suggest that by removing the requirement for add-on hardware and providing a smartphone-only option with direct feedback on performance to the user, the BrainEye application may provide a useful screening tool for sport-related concussion.
