Eye movements and vision

The research group is interdisciplinary and consists of about 20 employees who divide their time between research, teaching and clinic. The group includes ophthalmologists, optometrists, orthoptists, computational linguists, psychologists, speech therapists and engineers. What unites us is the interest in increasing the understanding of how congenital and acquired diseases and damage to the eyes and the brain's visual system can be identified and how these affect different functions and abilitie

The research group is located at Marianne Bernadotte Center, Eye Center of Excellence and St. Erik Eye Hospital in Solna. The research in the group ranges from experimental models of humans and animals to clinical patient research. At our laboratory, we have several different methods for eye movement measurements and eye movements are extra exciting as eye movements have something to tell us about what vision does and how the brain works.

Research projects

Below are some examples of how our research has contributed to improved diagnosis and care for some of our patients – something we are incredibly proud of.

  • Through the development of a unique analysis method on reading eye movements, we managed to identify children with an increased risk of dyslexia with high precision while acquitting children with late reading development. The method of registration and analysis of reading eye movements and support in the assessment of dyslexia has since a few years been translated into a company Lexplore, which today is hired by several schools and municipalities in Sweden and many other countries.

 

  • A cerebral palsy affects the motor control in the body. How CP damage affects the eyes' ability to adjust sharpness when reading (accommodation) was not clear and we found in a study of 15 children with CP that the ability was severely affected. As a result, we learned that many people with cerebral palsy, regardless of severity, can get a lot of help from a pair of simple reading glasses when reading and working with the computer.

 

  • A head movement creates an eye movement response that depends on the brain's ability to integrate sensory information from several different senses. In a series of projects, we have mapped how head movements and image movements in the visual field are integrated and can also reveal different conditions that arise after brain injury.

For more information about the research that is current and ongoing in the group, we refer to the doctoral students and the researchers' own profile pages. All members of the research group are listed below.

 

Selected Publications

Conserved subcortical processing in visuo-vestibular gaze control

Tobias Wibble, Tony Pansell, Sten Grillner & Juan Pérez-Fernández 

Nature Communications volume 13, Article number: 4699 (2022) Cite this article 498 Accesses 5 Altmetric Metrics

Visuo-motor integration, vision perception and attention in mTBI patients. Preliminary findings

Mariagrazia Benassi, Davide Frattini, Sara Garofalo, Roberto Bolzani, Tony Pansell

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 27;16(4):e0250598.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250598. eCollection 2021.

Developmental trajectories of global motion and global form perception from 4 years to adulthood

Mariagrazia Benassi, Sara Giovagnoli, Tony Pansell, Luca Mandolesi, Roberto Bolzani, Sara Magri, Lea Forsman, Kerstin Hellgren

J Exp Child Psychol. 2021 Jul;207:105092.doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105092. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Vision therapy as part of neurorehabilitation after acquired brain injury - a clinical study in an outpatient setting

J Johansson, M Berthold Lindstedt, K Borg 

Brain Inj. 2021 Jan 5;35(1):82-89.doi: 10.1080/02699052.2020.1858495. Epub 2020 Dec 9.

[Retinal hemorrhages in abusive head trauma]

Kerstin Hellgren, Kristina Fahnehjelm 

Lakartidningen. 2020 May 29;117:19239.

Intensified visual clutter induces increased sympathetic signalling, poorer postural control, and faster torsional eye movements during visual rotation         

Tobias Wibble , Ulrika Södergård, Frank Träisk , Tony Pansell 

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 3;15(1):e0227370.doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227370. eCollection 2020.

Profile of macular ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer thickness in healthy 6.5 year- old Swedish children

Urszula Arnljots, Maria Nilsson, Ida Hed Myrberg, Ulrika Åden, Kerstin Hellgren

BMC Ophthalmol. 2020 Aug 12;20(1):329.doi: 10.1186/s12886-020-01601-y.

Optic Disc Coloboma in children - prevalence, clinical characteristics and associated morbidity

Athanasia Skriapa Manta, Monica Olsson, Ulla Ek, Ronny Wickström, Kristina Teär Fahnehjelm

Acta Ophthalmol. 2019 Aug;97(5):478-485.doi: 10.1111/aos.13999. Epub 2018 Dec 13.

Vision therapy as part of neurorehabilitation after acquired brain injury - a clinical study in an outpatient setting

J Johansson, M Berthold Lindstedt, K Borg 

Brain Inj. 2020 Dec 9;1-8.doi: 10.1080/02699052.2020.1858495. Online ahead of print.

Group leader

Tony Pansell

Senior lecturer/optician
K8 Department of Clinical Neuroscience

Research team members

Maria Persson
27-04-2023