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Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2026
July 12-15, 2026 | London, United Kingdom, and Online
8901
Comparing The Eye Movements During Driving Turns In Older Adults With And Without Elevated Amyloid Burden
Part of Topic
Comparing the eye movements during driving turns in older adults with and without elevated amyloid burden
Anu M. Kumar1, Yi Lu Murphey2, Amanda Cook Maher1,3, Carol C Persad1,3, Robert A. Koeppe1,3, and Bruno Giordani1,3
1University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
2University of Michigan - Dearborn, Dearborn, MI, USA
3University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Background:
•Subtle changes in instrumental activities of daily living, especially cognitively intensive tasks like driving, may signal the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
•Eye-movement patterns reflect the coordination of visual attention and cognitive control, offering an ecologically valid indicator of early cognitive risk.
•Elevated brain amyloid burden (Aβ) is an early biomarker of AD, even in cognitively normal older adults [1].
•This study evaluates eye-movement patterns during driving turning maneuvers in cognitively normal older adults with and without elevated Aβ burden.
Dataset:
•We analyzed data from 40 older volunteers, aged 65+, who were determined to be cognitively normal via Michigan ADRC consensus conference diagnosis.
•All participants completed the following:
1.Amyloid PET scan
2.Fixed course drive (all participants followed the same route)
3.Additional neuropsychological testing
•Amyloid positivity was determined via PiB PET scan [2]:
oAmyloid positive (Aβ+) (n=20): centiloid value ≥20
oAmyloid negative (Aβ-) (n=20): centiloid value ≤10
•During the fixed course drive of each participant, eye-movement data and vehicular data were collected using the Tobii Pro Glasses and the DL1 CLUB Data Logger respectively
Method:
•Right and left turn maneuvers made during the fixed course driving trip were automatically detected using a predefined heading-change threshold
oFigure 1 shows the right and left turns automatically detected by our algorithm for one study participant
•Eye-movement measures (fixation duration, saccade duration, number of fixations/saccades) were computed per turn type.
•Independent sample t-tests compared eye-movement measures during right and left turns between Aβ+ and Aβ- groups.
Results:
•In this study, Aβ+ drivers showed a pattern in longer average fixation durations paired with shorter saccade durations, while Aβ- had shorter fixation durations with slightly longer saccade durations (shown in Figure 2).
•Mean and median fixation durations were significantly longer in Aβ+ drivers than Aβ- drivers specifically during right turns (p’s <0.05).
•Mean saccade duration during right turns was significantly shorter in Aβ+ drivers compared with Aβ- drivers (p <0.05).
•No significant group differences were found during left turns.
Conclusion:
•During turning events, cognitively normal Aβ+ drivers show distinct eye movement patterns compared with Aβ- peers
•Findings suggest Aβ+ drivers spend longer times fixating on points of interest (perhaps needing more time to process visual information) and make shorter saccades, potentially indicating narrower, less exploratory eye movements, aligning with early AD oculomotor research.
•Further research will explore eye movements in larger samples during additional driving maneuvers using machine learning to gain deeper insights into oculomotor gaze behavior changes across broader driving demands in Aβ+ seniors.
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