Vision Loss Impact on Navigation in Virtual Reality | NCT06047717

NCT06047717

Status Module

Name	Class
Rochester Institute of Technology	OTHER

Description Module

Arms/Interventions Module

Arm Groups

Label	Type	Description	Intervention Names
Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Cortically Blind Cohort	Experimental	Persons who have sustained cortical blindness will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.	Other: Virtual Reality Driving Task
Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Healthy Control Cohort	Experimental	Healthy controls with no vision loss will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.	Other: Virtual Reality Driving Task

Interventions

Name	Type	Description	Arm Group Labels	Other Names
Virtual Reality Driving Task	Other	Participants will steer a virtual car with the goal of staying in the center of a single-lane roadway while traveling at a constant speed of 26.6 m/s (approximately 60 miles/hr). The roadway alternates between a series of straights and turns of different radii to both the left and the right. This allows for careful control of task difficulty, and for the repeated presentation of specific conditions across multiple "trials" (i.e. turns in the road) in a randomized order. In addition, the density of the visual texture elements in the virtual environment that provide optic flow (OF) signal is also varied. The low-density OF condition has no road texture or foliage, and only the solid road edges on a flat-black ground plane. The medium-density OF condition has sparse textural elements distributed on the ground plane, and the high-density OF condition has high density road texture and a canopy of road-side trees that provide texture extending far above the horizon.

Outcomes Module

Primary Outcomes

Measure	Description	Time Frame
Virtual Reality (VR) Lane Deviation / Offset	Virtual lane offset is a measure of driving accuracy, which involves computing the divergence (in virtual meters) from the center of the single-lane virtual roadway, relative to the position of the driver's head and averaged over the duration of each turn. The researchers will compare the variance of lane offset in virtual meters between Cortically Blind (CB) and control subjects.	Day 0

Eligibility Module

Eligibility Criteria

Cortically Blind Group:

Inclusion Criteria:

Residents of the United States or Canada
Presence of one-sided stroke or stroke-like damage to primary visual cortex or its immediate afferent white matter sustained within the specified age range of 21 - 75 years (verified by MRI and/or CT scans)
Reliable visual field defects in both eyes (homonymous defects) as measured by Humphrey or equivalent perimetry.
Willing, able, and competent to provide their own informed consent
Cognitively able, responsible to understand written and oral instructions in English
Emmetropic or else wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality headset

Exclusion Criteria:

Those who have never driven or earned a drivers' license
Past or present ocular disease interfering with visual acuity
Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) worse than 20/40 in either eye
Sustained damage to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus
Presence of diffuse, whole-brain degenerative processes
Presence of brain damage deemed by study staff to potentially interfere with outcome measures
History of traumatic brain injury
Documented history of drug/alcohol abuse
Diagnosis of cognitive or seizure disorders
Diagnosis of one-sided attentional neglect

Control Group:

Inclusion Criteria:

Normal or corrected-to-normal vision, who are between the ages of 21 and 75 years of age, roughly matched to the age of CB subjects enrolled above
Competent and responsible, as determined by the Principal Investigator
Willing, able, and competent to provide their own informed consent
Normal cognitive abilities, be able to understand written and oral instructions in English
Emmetropic or else wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality headset

Exclusion Criteria:

Subjects who have never driven or earned a drivers' license
BCVA worse than 20/40 in either eye
Presence of vision loss from ocular diseases or disorders
Presence of a visual field defect
Inability to wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality helmet if required to see clearly
Subjects with a history of neurological disorders
Subjects with a history of TBI
Persons who lack the competence or are otherwise unable to perform the visual testing as directed.

ID	Term
D002561	Cerebrovascular Disorders
D001927	Brain Diseases
D002493	Central Nervous System Diseases
D009422	Nervous System Diseases
D014652	Vascular Diseases
D002318	Cardiovascular Diseases
D014786	Vision Disorders
D012678	Sensation Disorders
D009461	Neurologic Manifestations
D001766	Blindness
D005128	Eye Diseases
D012816	Signs and Symptoms
D013568	Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms