Motion-sensitivity and other non-standard functional tests as predictors of functional vision in activities of daily living in glaucoma

I joined the Laboratory of Experimental Ophthalmology in the University Medical Center Groningen (Groningen, the Netherlands) in October 2021 to carry out this project under supervision of Prof. Nomdo M. Jansonius and Prof. Frans W. Cornelissen.

Personal Background and Interest:

I studied medicine in Mashhad University of Medical sciences and became a medical doctor in 2018. During my studies, I collaborated in ophthalmologic research in the Eye research center and my thesis was about changes in corneal epithelial thickness after refractive surgeries. After graduation, I worked as a general physician for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic. My main research interests are ophthalmology and clinical interdisciplinary research combining ophthalmology and neurology. I plan on continuing doing research in the field of ophthalmology as well as becoming an ophthalmologist and working in the clinic.

Aim of the project:

The objectives of my project are to 1) to predict visual performance in ADL including; and 2) evaluate the efficacy of using motion sensitivity for diagnostics. There will be a specific focus on glaucoma (an ophthalmic disease), since insensitivity to motion is a key characteristic.

Current activities: 

Currently, I am specifically working on early glaucoma patients that have non-overlapping monocular visual field defects and an intact binocular visual field. I’m carrying out a questionnaire study on these patients to characterize the possible symptoms and difficulties they may have in their activities of daily living. Furthermore, I investigated which of these difficulties are related to the patients' binocular visual fields or their non-overlapping monocular visual field defects. In a second study, I’m using the data from the same questionnaire to investigate the role of volume scotoma, visual field defects that happen behind or in front of the point of eyes’ fixation, in activities of daily living. In a third study, I simulated non-overlapping visual field defects for ten healthy volunteers to study the effect of these defects on different visual functions. For this, I used a stereoscope to create a dichoptic setup which allowed showing stimuli to the left and right eye independently.

Future directions:
For my secondment, I will collaborate with City University of London to investigate the effect of the location of visual field defects on the vision related quality of life. Furthermore, I will collaborate with ESR 13 (Ashkan) to implement a novel archetypal analysis on a large dataset of binocular visual fields of glaucoma patients that is available at the City University of London.