Our fellows have successfully participated in high-level training and booked great progress in their research:
Giorgia Demaria [UMCG] ranked the user friendliness and discriminative power of a battery of tests (3 newly developed by EGRET+ partners) to assess the visual field based in (super) elderly.The most promising ones are now evaluated in elderly with cognitive impairment.
Iris Tigchelaar [OCU] evaluated the Ocusweep, a test for assessing ophthalmic and neurological aspects of vision. She developed, tested, validated and patented a new reaction time test that was added to the Ocusweep. She determined the predictive value of Ocusweep for driving performance in a simulator, comparing glaucoma patients and age-similar healthy elderly.
Daniel Asfaw [CITY] assessed whether visual system dysfunction is reflected by a person's gaze. He developed new metrics and concluded that eye movements recorded, while passively viewing images, could be used to uncover visual field damage in glaucoma patients.
Rijul Soans [UMCG] applied a new gaze-based paradigm to assess the integrity of the visual system in a population of Indian people and showed it could well detect those with visual field problems, amongst them patients with glaucoma. He also assessed sensitivity to motion-in-depth using a new continuous measurement paradigm and virtual reality set-up.
Stephen Kelly [CITY] produced maps of the UK, illustrating the relationship between late diagnosis of glaucoma and socioeconomic status. He evaluated treatment quality and guidelines adherence between centers and showed a faster glaucoma progression in patients with also another eye disease.
Shereif Haykal [UMCG] carried out the world’s first longitudinal study on structural brain changes in glaucoma. He also introduced a new structural MRI approach to quantify optic atrophy in glaucoma. This method can be used in individual patients and carries information that is complementary to OCT.
Khaldoon Al-Nosairy [OVGU] applied non-invasive retinal electrophysiology, reflecting retinal ganglion cell function, for glaucoma assessment. He optimised parameters for multifocal photopic negative response recordings as well as simultaneous recordings of multifocal pattern ERG and cortical responses.
Gokulraj Prabhakaran’s [OVGU] mapping out the deafferented visual cortex in glaucoma patients and investigating task-related brain activity. He found a good correspondence between subjective and fMRI related visual field coverage. He also found that the cortical representation of the fovea varies with the extent of the stimulated visual field.
Jeferson Jhone da Silva [ECHO] improved two pivotal technical issues that limited the non-invasive assessment of intracranial pressure (ICP) based on otoacoustic emissions. He developed algorithms for a reproducible and leakage-free probe placement and efficient noise rejection. These were implemented in a device developed by an EGRET+ partner.
Sandra Gonzalez Torrecilla [UDA] introduced absorbance measurements in the ear as a technique to assess absolute ICP, where measurements on otoacoustic emissions can only detect changes in ICP.
Konstantinos Pappelis [UMCG] developed a mathematical model for quantifying perfusion of the retina using parameters that can be collected noninvasively with clinical devices. He applied his model to a large dataset of hypotensive, normotensive, and hypertensive subjects, thereby unraveling the contribution of blood pressure and autoregulation to the pathophysiology of glaucoma.
Jacqueline van den Bosch [IMP] used an intraocular sensor for continuous intraocular pressure (IOP) assessment, developed by an EGRET+ partner, to study the effects of environmental and patient-related factors on IOP. Compared to the current clinical approach of 2 to 4 IOP readings per year, this method holds the potential to dramatically change our view on the role of IOP in glaucoma progression.
Vincenzo Pennisi [OVGU] merged techniques developed and refined in EGRET for measuring ICP (using otoacoustic emissions) and IOP (with the intraocular sensor). He showed, by manipulating body position, that IOP and ICP undergo diverging changes in response to changes in body position.
Philip Wagstaff [AMC] has set up an in-vitro model for glaucoma based on developing retinal ganglion cells. He succeeded in growing retina’s-in-a-dish, including retinal ganglion cells. He significantly accelerated the growth process, an important step towards the development of - ultimately - stem cell therapy.
Valeria Lo Faro [UMCG] used genetic data of two large cohorts from Groningen, a glaucoma cohort and a control cohort, to study the role of mitochondrial DNA in glaucoma. She also made a detailed phenotypic description of the glaucoma cohort, which is now being applied in a large genetic study.
