Near-Real-Time Saccade Detection with Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopes

Abstract

This paper describes a method to analyze raster scans from a scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO) to derive a near-real-time shutter control signal to block a treatment laser within 5ms of the onset of a saccadic shift. The proposed method exploits the scanning nature of the SLO and assumes direct access to each scan line as it is received. A small number of scan lines are grouped to form horizontal bands of the scanned area. Several figures-of-merit are introduced to generate robust decisions on saccade occurrence within each band. Results are shown for both simulated and real SLO image sequences. Fast robust saccade detection has further applications in high accuracy retinal motion estimation and studies of temporal properties of saccadic eye motion in humans.