Purpose¶
“to offer an affordable, versatile, extensible and transparent solution for researching the pupillary light reflex.”
The pupillary light reflex, or PLR for short, is the constriction and dilation of the pupil in response to changes in light. It has long been studied by researchers and physicians as a means of gaining insight into the integrity and activity of the central nervous system, but in more recent years it has gained recognition as a tool with diagnostic utility for a wide range of ophthalmic, neurological and psychiatric diseases. For example, Alzheimer’s patients may have reduced velocity and acceleration of pupil constriction to a brief flash of light (Fotiou et al., 2009), children with autism spectrum disorder may show an atypical PLR (Fan et al., 2009), and patients with multiple sclerosis may have abnormal responses to blue light (Meltzer et al., 2017). Automated pupillometers offer a convenient ‘all-in-one’ solution to measuring the PLR as they are compact, portable and easy to use, but these devices are typically expensive and inflexible, with limited control over stimulus parameters and in some cases no access to the raw data. PyPlr is an alternative that works with the Pupil Core (Pupil Labs, GmbH, Berlin) eye tracking platform to offer an affordable, versatile, extensible and transparent solution for researching the PLR. We developed this software for use in a larger interdisciplinary project that will establish whether a person’s PLR holds clues as to their cerebrovascular health, but we hope also that others will put it to good use.
Tables and indices
