Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Predictive behaviour allows us to react in different situations as quickly as possible. For example, often times when a goalie prepares for a penalty kick, he anticipates the direction of the ball and either jumps left or right. If he does not predict the ball's direction and purely responds based on what he sees once the ball is kicked towards him, he may not be quick enough to block the ball. This study aims to examine the processes related to anticipation that occur in the brain. This will be done by investigating the brain regions that are most active during quick predictive eye movements, also called 'predictive saccades'. We will scan the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in combination with eye-tracking technology. By investigating what the brain does in healthy people during predictive saccades, we can observe how the brain activity of patients with Schizophrenia and Tourette's Syndrome is different. We can subsequently show the relationship between abnormal brain activities with abnormal eye movements. This has great clinical implications because observation of eye movements in people vulnerable to these disorders may be indicative of future development of the disease. With greater study, eye tracking may serve as an early diagnostic tool, a detection method that may be better than a clinician's observation. This would be valuable especially in cases where treatment is preventive and early detection is key. In addition, eye tracking technology is relatively inexpensive compared to brain imaging and patients may be assessed in their homes, making it a viable health investment. As such, this study has been designed to combine high speed eye tracking technology with modern brain imaging techniques to identify dysfunction in patients in the brain regions that are required to produce anticipatory behaviour.