2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Measurement of visual function in preterm infant and its clinical use

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20790768
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Embryonic/Neonatal medicine
Research Institution	Kagawa University
Principal Investigator	OKUBO Kensuke Kagawa University, 医学部, 助教 (80335851)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2009
Keywords	極低出生体重児 / 早産児 / 視線追跡装置 / 視覚機能 / 学習障害 / 広汎性発達障害 / 顔認知 / 視運動性眼振
Research Abstract	Learning Disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorders in very low birth infants are higher than the patients in term infants. It was known that the backgrounds of these disorders have the dysfunction of visual cortex. In this study, we investigate the visual function of infants aged three months used Tobii eye-tracker system. This system is capable of tracking eyeball movements of infants and we can easily measure looking times for facial stimuli. Looking times for facial stimuli in preterm infants are slightly short than the times in term infants, but the looking time for the upper part of faces was significantly longer than that for the lower part both in term infants and preterm infants.