They say that the eyes are the windows of the soul, but physiologically speaking, they are really windows to the brain.

RightEye looks through this window to detect common but often subtle vision problems resulting from concussions and other brain disorders. Its fast and portable eye tracking station can tell you in minutes if you should consult a doctor or consider becoming a professional player.

It turns out that there are many things you can say from the way someone's eyes move. We may not notice it ourselves, but we all vary in the manner and manner in which we perform a number of basic tasks, ranging from back-and-forth movements to the pursuit of a moving target. For example, your eyes may look too good, do not align properly or move vertically when moving along a straight line.

For healthy individuals, these variations are within a safe range, just a portion of the ordinary differences between the bodies. But some models well outside the baseline can be strong indicators of things like concussions and muscle problems of the eye – and even the conditions of Parkinson's and autism spectrum.

RightEye tracks these movements with a custom device that looks a bit like an all-in-one desktop; it uses a Tobii eye tracking module built into a single-use computer loaded with a library of simple tests. An EyeQ basic test (as they call it) takes about five minutes, with more specialized tests adding only a few more, and results are available immediately.

To give you an idea: a test in the form of a game forces you to defend a space station, destroying the incoming ships by looking at them. But some colored vessels should not be destroyed, which means that you must detect them in your peripheral vision and avoid looking at them. In another test, you perform a quick scan of the eyes between two targets appearing on opposite sides of the screen, demonstrating accuracy and functional saccades (micro-corrections made by the muscles of your eyes).

Each eye is tracked independently, and their performance as a matched pair is evaluated instantly. An easy-to-understand results sheet shows their actual movements and how (if any) they are moving away from the baseline.

It is compact and can run on battery power for about 8 hours, making it ideal for deployment outside hospitals or anywhere: anywhere from the school nurse's office to the edge of the office. A game of the NFL, even at home.



I tested the device myself at CES (my vision is just OK, but I want a rematch), and later, I talked with Barbara Barclay, president of RIghtEye. The two most exciting applications of technology, judged by his enthusiasm anyway, are to identify vision-related cognitive problems in children and to create a kind of eye fitness test for athletes.

Suppose a child has difficulty learning to read or may not be able to pay attention in class. The immediate thinking nowadays is often ADD. But it's more than possible that it's a vision problem. A subtle difference in the way the eyes move, perhaps an exit from the horizontal when following a line of text, could easily make reading on the page or chart frustrating or even painful . What would a third year child keep?

This is not a revolutionary new idea – but objectively and objectively evaluating individual eye movements was only something you could do if you went to see a specialist, perhaps after other explanations of behavior did not manifest themselves. The RightEye test practically runs itself and can detect or eliminate the possibility of vision problems in minutes. Honestly, I think that a child might even find it amusing.

Barclay has personal experience of this problem, with his own daughter having health problems that, after multiple false starts, had their roots in a relatively simple vision problem that the system indicated.

In 2016, RightEye acquired the rights to a pair of research-based tests linking eye movement patterns to Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, as well as spectrum conditions. ;autism. This is not a magic bullet, but again, the quick and easy nature of the tests makes them ideal for routine screening.

The Autism Spectrum test only addresses children aged 1 to 3, and observes eye movements between images of people and images of geometric shapes. Staying on forms more than people, it turns out, is a good indicator that, at least, the kid should receive other tests.

Parkinson's and Huntington's tests monitor the most well-understood patterns that accompany motor degeneration observed in these conditions. They can be administered to people of all ages and have (using eye tracking devices earlier) contributed to many identifications of diseases.

On a very different note, but perhaps more immediately remunerative, Barclay said that the test also works as a way to find outliers on the other end: people with a super -vision.

It is quite possible for someone to pass the test and their results will show that they have faster and more accurate saccades, faster target acquisition and better continuous tracking of objects. than the baseline. It's a huge asset to have if you're batting on the field, keeping goals, playing in the tight end – pretty much anything, really.

It is also an asset to have if you are a scout or a trainer. If Lopez is very good on the left side of the court, but not on the right, you can see that he has trouble following the ball by looking over his left shoulder, his eyes completely to the right.

Not only that, but you can test the effects of concussions or other trauma on the ground if they have problems. Given the extent of these injuries and the immense risk of repeated concussions, early and often performed tests could literally save lives.

At present, Barclay told me, 7 MLB teams use RightEye technology to evaluate players. Regarding the medical side, she said that the company currently has 200 clients. The new material should help increase this number.

Perhaps more importantly, he has the support (and therefore the weight) of VSP, the country's largest vision insurance company. This is both a huge vote of confidence and a major element – nothing prevents people from using a system faster than knowing that it is covered by their existing insurance.