Image processing-based automatic pupillometry on infrared videos

Abstract

Pupillometry is a non-invasive technique that can be used to objectively characterize pathophysiological changes involving the pupillary reflex. It is essentially the measurement of the pupil diameter over time. Here, specially designed computer algorithms provide fast, reliable and reproducible solutions for the analysis. These methods use a priori information about the shape and color of the pupil. Our study focuses on measuring the diameter and dynamics of the pupils of rats with schizophrenia using videos recorded with a modified digital camera under infrared (IR) illumination. We developed a novel, robust method that measures the size of a pupil even under poor circumstances (noise, blur, reflections and occlusions). We compare our results with measurements obtained using manual annotation.