Oculomotor & vestibular measurement · standalone headset

Symptoms are reported.
Eye movements are measured.

Saccade latency, convergence, pupillary light reflex, smooth pursuit, VOR, balance and reaction time — scored against each athlete's own baseline, with the raw eye-tracking trace kept for every session. Under five minutes on the sideline. Sixteen for a baseline. The clinician decides; the numbers are there when they do.

Horizontal saccade — 15° step response
Pre-season baseline Same athlete, post-impact
10° 15° 20° 0 100 200 300 400 ms latency +45 ms undershoot 4.5° corrective saccade

Illustrative trace. Every athlete is measured against their own recorded values, not a population curve.

Two modes

Screen for deficits after an impact.
Track capacity in between.

The same headset runs two batteries. One compares an athlete to their own pre-season baseline when a deficit is the question; the other compares them to their own best when performance is. Same instrument, same roster, different reference.

Sideline · recovery

Deficit screening

Against the athlete's own pre-season baseline

Four systems in under five minutes. Output is a finding — no deficit detected, deficit detected, significant deficit detected — for a clinician, never a return-to-play decision.

  • Convergencenear point, cm · subjective + objective
  • Saccade latencyms · gain
  • Balance, eyes coveredsway path, cm
  • Reaction timems
Training room

Capacity tracking

Against the athlete's rolling personal best

A harder battery for decision speed under load. No baseline needed; the first session sets the mark. Kept apart from recovery data so training gains never read as healing.

  • Go / no-goms · inhibition errors
  • Multiple object trackingaccuracy % · peak speed
  • Divided attentionperipheral detection %
  • Hand-eye under drifttargets / 30 s

The battery

Fifteen tests.
Physical units only.

No composite wellness score. Each test returns a quantity you can read, question and compare across sessions — or reports unavailable, with the reason, when it could not measure.

TestSystemPrimary outputRuns in
ConvergenceVergenceNear point cm; objective break; subjective–objective gapSideline · Full
Saccade latencyBrainstem / frontalLatency ms; gain; latency SDSideline · Full
Smooth pursuitCortical trackingGain; phase lag ms; fit residual °Full
Pupillary light reflexAutonomicLatency ms; constriction %; max velocity mm/s; asymmetryFull
Visual fieldAfferentDetection %; detection time ms; false alarmsFull
Contrast sensitivityAfferentThreshold, logCS (2AFC staircase)Full
Dynamic acuity / VORVestibulo-ocularHead-moving vs head-still accuracy %Full
Balance, eyes coveredVestibular / proprioceptiveSway path cm; RMS sway mmSideline · Full
Reaction timeSensorimotorMean ms; best msSideline · Full
Hand-eye coordinationVisuomotorTargets hit; hit rate %; time to hit msFull
Working memoryCognitiveLongest sequence; errorsFull
Go / no-goInhibitory controlGo RT ms; inhibition errors; accuracy %Performance
Multiple object trackingAttentional loadTracking accuracy %; peak speedPerformance
Divided attentionDual taskPeripheral detection %; central hit ratePerformance
Hand-eye under driftVisuomotor, loadedTargets / 30 sPerformance

Full baseline ≈ 16 min  ·  Sideline < 5 min  ·  Performance ≈ 9 min  ·  Eye tracking 120 Hz binocular.

The report

Where the deficit is.
Not what to do about it.

For every test, the report shows the measured value, the athlete's own baseline value, the result as a percentage of that baseline, and a colour band.

Sample

Generated by the software from a synthetic test athlete.

Open full size
≥90 % near baseline 75–89 some deficit 60–74 marked <60 severe Bands are provisional until the test–retest study sets reliable-change thresholds.

For the neurologist

Why the numbers
can be defended

Measured or nothing. No default values, no timeout written as a reaction time, no zero for a lost track. An unmeasured channel reports unavailable — reason.
No-response is not an error. Silence never moves a staircase or scores as wrong; repeated silence abandons the test.
Gaze is a measurand, not an input. Hands-free responses use head orientation. Eye position is never a button.
One athlete, one baseline. Most recent three baselines of the same athlete, same stimulus configuration, same response device. A changed constant changes the configuration hash; older baselines are refused with the reason stated.
Stimuli in degrees. Visual-demand targets hold constant angular size as they move; the convergence target is a 0.8° × 2.4° bar so a fusion break splits rather than blurs. Subjective and objective break are both recorded.
Raw data retained. A per-frame trace (both eyes' origin and direction, pupils, lid openness, head, controllers, stimulus) and a per-trial log for every session — re-analysis and reliability work without re-testing anyone.

Detector definitions, fixed across builds: PLR latency at 10 % of constriction amplitude on a median-filtered trace · saccade onset at 2° displacement after a 1–2 s random foreperiod, <80 ms excluded as anticipatory · pursuit gain from a least-squares fit of eye on target position, no differentiation · objective vergence break = filtered vergence lagging demand by ≥ max(3°, 20 %) for 0.3 s with hysteresis.

NuOptic Desk

The roster side

Add athletes once. Tag the headset before each session; the tag is used once, so a result can never attach to the next person. Pull over USB. Open any athlete's report. Windows, Linux, Mac; the database stays on your machine, every pull is kept raw.

NuOptic Desk: athlete list, a selected test athlete's sessions with composite scores, headset status in the header.
Synthetic test athlete. The header line was read from a connected headset.

In the headset

The athlete never sees a score

A session runs in four stages. The examiner chooses the athlete and the assessment on the menu, then hands the headset over. The athlete presses START only once the headset is seated and comfortable, so nothing is timed against a fumbled start. Between tests the headset shows a neutral progress screen: no score, no colour band, no hint of how the last test went. When the battery ends, the athlete is asked to take the headset off and return it. No result, band or finding ever appears in the headset. The examiner reads them on the desktop after the pull.

The four panels below are drawn illustrations of those screens. Photographs from inside the headset will replace them after the first recorded sessions.

EXAMINER — SELECT ASSESSMENT ATHLETE: J. Smith #14 (3 on today's list) Baselines for this athlete: 2 Input: controller Practice: ON Full Baseline Recovery Check Sidelines Check Peak Performance START All 11 tests, about 16 min. Records the reference every later check compares against.
Examiner menu. Practice gates can be switched off here.
PRACTICE Touch the green ball with your controller. The trigger does nothing here. hand
Practice before scored trials, first session only. Nothing is scored until the response registers.
The instant it splits into two, pull either trigger. 0.8° × 2.4° · constant angular size · 40 → 6 cm at 5 cm/s
Convergence. Subjective break by trigger; objective break from binocular gaze.
All tests complete Athlete: take the headset off and hand it back. Results are not shown in the headset.
End of session. Findings are examiner information and never appear in the headset.

Limits

NuOptic does not diagnose concussion and does not make return-to-play decisions. It is a measurement instrument; its output supplements the evaluation of a qualified clinician under your institution's protocol. Not FDA cleared. Deficit scoring requires the athlete's own baseline under the same software configuration and response device. Intended for athletes 13 and older.

Contact

Request a demo

For athletic departments, sports-medicine groups and neurology practices. Tell us about your program and we will arrange a session.