Sex differences in fixational eye movements following concussion

Recent research supports impairments in fixational eye movements (FEMs), small motions of the eye that occur during periods when gaze is maintained on a fixed target, as an objective biomarker of concussion. Preliminary work has demonstrated that fixational saccades are larger following a concussion; however, sex differences in FEMs and fixational saccades have not been examined. In this study, we used retinal image-based eye tracking, with a tracking scanning laser ophthalmoscope (TSLO), to record FEMs while adolescents with concussion (n = 44; age range, 13-27 years) and age- and sex-matched healthy controls (n = 44; age range, 13-27 years) fixated the center or corner of the TSLO imaging raster. To improve reliability and overcome errors associated with the manual labeling of FEMs, an objective velocity-based algorithm was used to detect fixational saccades. Concussion patients made larger fixational saccades than controls but only on the center task. Females made larger fixational saccades than males on this task irrespective of injury group, whereas no significant difference was supported for the corner task. Females also made fewer horizontal and more oblique fixational saccades than males on the corner task. These findings highlight the importance of controlling for task- and sex-specific differences when evaluating FEMs as a biomarker for concussion.