Colour perception develops throughout childhood with increased risk of deficiencies in children born prematurely.

AIM: To quantify the impact of prematurity on chromatic discrimination throughout childhood, from 2 to 15 years of age. METHODS: We recruited two cohorts of children, as part of the TrackAI Project, an international project with seven different study sites: a control group of full-term children with normal visual development and a group of children born prematurely. All children underwent a complete ophthalmological exam and an assessment of colour discrimination along the three colour axes: deutan, protan and trytan using a DIVE device with eye tracking technology. RESULTS: We enrolled a total of 1872 children (928 females and 944 males) with a mean age of 6.64 years. Out of them, 374 were children born prematurely and 1498 were full-term controls. Using data from all the children born at term, reference normative curves were plotted for colour discrimination in every colour axis. Pre-term children presented worse colour discrimination than full-term in the three colour axes (p < 0.001). Even after removing from the comparison, all pre-term children with any visual disorder colour discrimination outcomes remained significantly worse than those from full-term children. CONCLUSION: While colour perception develops throughout the first years of life, children born pre-term face an increased risk for colour vision deficiencies.

Development of oculomotor control throughout childhood: A multicenter and multiethnic study.

Although steady fixation is a key aspect of a proper visual function, it is only subjectively assessed in young and uncooperative children. In the present study, we characterize the development of fixational behavior throughout childhood in a large group of healthy children 5 months of age and up, recruited in five geographically diverse sites. In order to do it, we examined 802 healthy children from April 2019 to February 2020. Their oculomotor behavior was analyzed by means of an automated digital system, based on eye-tracking technology. Oculomotor outcomes were gaze stability, fixation stability and duration of fixations (for both long and short fixational tasks), and saccadic reaction time. Ninety-nine percent of all recruited children were successfully examined. Fixational and saccadic performance improved with age throughout childhood, with more pronounced changes during the first 2 years of life. Gaze and fixation tended to be more stable with age (p < 0.001 for most the outcomes), and saccades tended to be faster. In a multivariate analysis, including age and ethnicity as independent variables and adjusting by data quality, age was related with most fixational outcomes. Our automated digital system and eye-tracking data allow us to quantitatively describe the development of oculomotor control during childhood, assess visual fixation and saccadic performance in children 5 months of age and up, and provide a normative reference of fixational outcomes for clinical practice.

Development of a system based on artificial intelligence to identify visual problems in children: study protocol of the TrackAI project.

INTRODUCTION: Around 70% to 80% of the 19 million visually disabled children in the world are due to a preventable or curable disease, if detected early enough. Vision screening in childhood is an evidence-based and cost-effective way to detect visual disorders. However, current screening programmes face several limitations: training required to perform them efficiently, lack of accurate screening tools and poor collaboration from young children.Some of these limitations can be overcome by new digital tools. Implementing a system based on artificial intelligence systems avoid the challenge of interpreting visual outcomes.The objective of the TrackAI Project is to develop a system to identify children with visual disorders. The system will have two main components: a novel visual test implemented in a digital device, DIVE (Device for an Integral Visual Examination); and artificial intelligence algorithms that will run on a smartphone to analyse automatically the visual data gathered by DIVE. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This is a multicentre study, with at least five centres located in five geographically diverse study sites participating in the recruitment, covering Europe, USA and Asia.The study will include children aged between 6 months and 14 years, both with normal or abnormal visual development.The project will be divided in two consecutive phases: design and training of an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to identify visual problems, and system development and validation. The study protocol will consist of a comprehensive ophthalmological examination, performed by an experienced paediatric ophthalmologist, and an exam of the visual function using a DIVE.For the first part of the study, diagnostic labels will be given to each DIVE exam to train the neural network. For the validation, diagnosis provided by ophthalmologists will be compared with AI system outcomes. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study will be conducted in accordance with the principles of Good Clinical Practice. This protocol was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of Aragón, CEICA, on January 2019 (Code PI18/346).Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and disseminated in scientific meetings. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN17316993.

Oculomotor deficits in children adopted from Eastern Europe.

AIM: We aim to assess oculomotor behaviour in children adopted from Eastern Europe, who are at high risk of maternal alcohol consumption. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 29 adoptees and 29 age-matched controls. All of them underwent a complete ophthalmological examination. Oculomotor control, including fixation and saccadic performance, was assessed using a DIVE device, with eye tracking technology. Anthropometric and facial measurements were obtained from all the adopted children, to identify features of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Fixational and saccadic outcomes were compared between groups, and the effect of adoption and FASD features quantified. RESULTS: Oculomotor performance was poorer in adopted children. They presented shorter (0.53 vs 1.43 milliseconds in the long task and 0.43 vs 0.82 in the short task) and more unstable fixations (with a bivariate contour ellipse area of 27.9 vs 11.6 degree2 during the long task and 6.9 vs 1.3 degree2 during the short task) and slower saccadic reactions (278 vs 197 milliseconds). Children with sentinel finding for FASD showed the worst oculomotor outcomes. CONCLUSION: Children adopted from Eastern Europe present oculomotor deficits, affecting both fixation and saccadic skills. We highlight prenatal exposure to alcohol as the main cause for these deficits.