Principal Investigator Thomas Heldt
Co-investigator Vivienne Sze
MIT researchers are developing low-cost tools to identify and track Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases using a simple mobile-phone app. As patients play an eye-tracking game on their phone, the camera records how quickly and accurately their eyes respond to prompts on the screen. The resulting data can tell researchers how well the patient’s brain is functioning. The app, and the software being developed to crunch the data, could provide a way to track disease progression in patients with Alzheimer's. It could also be used as an adjunct to clinical drug trials by making it easier to track improvements over time.