Use of Eye Tracking to Study Social Perception Abnormalities in Children With Angelman Syndrome

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Eye tracking: The eye-tracking session will take place in the Pediatric Radiology department of Necker Hospital. The child will be seated in front of a computer screen. Films and images with social and/or non-social content will be shown to the children. The session will be unique, will last approximately 15 minutes and will not involve any constraints for the child. Eye tracking allows to measure where and how a person looks. An infrared light is emitted towards the subject's eye. It is reflected there and a camera records the reflections generated, allowing a real-time calculation of the position of the gaze. The technique is harmless and non-invasive.

Data collection from patients' medical files: Data collection from patients' medical files: * Brain imaging data if this examination was carried out as part of the patient's care, * Angelman syndrome genotypes.

questionnaires: Completion of two questionnaires by parents, the DIVA-5 ID to assess the level of attention difficulties and the M-CHAT questionnaire to measure the level of social difficulties in children. The purpose of these two scales is to better interpret the eye-tracking results.

Study summary

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a rare neurogenetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 15,000 children - approximately 500,000 people worldwide. It is a major neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by severe developmental delay with significant intellectual disability, lack of oral language, motor, balance, and sensory impairments.

While basic research and clinical trials are progressing, the scientific community is still searching for key biomarkers to assess significant improvements in individuals participating in clinical trials.

Eye tracking has been widely used in the diagnosis of social perception abnormalities in children with autism spectrum disorder, as has already been the case for other rare neurodevelopmental diseases. However, few studies have highlighted the usefulness of eye tracking as a diagnostic tool for social behavioral disorders in individuals with Angelman syndrome. Given the prevalence of autistic-like symptoms in patients with AS, if eye-tracking can identify abnormalities in social perception in children with Angelman syndrome, these measurements could become a biomarker for therapeutic studies in these patients.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Abnormalities of social perception in children with Angelman syndrome — Time 0
  Social perception abnormalities in children with Angelman syndrome will be studied using eye tracking. Social perception will be measured during the eye-tracking test by the number of fixations in social and non-social regions.

Trial sites (1)

More Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris trials in France

Other trials for the same condition