Pupillometric study of the dysregulation of the autonomous nervous system by SVM networks

Abstract

Pupil is controlled by the autonomous nervous system. Patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) are affected by a dysregulation of the autonomous system. Pupillometry is here used to investigate the state of the autonomous system in 3 groups: control, TMD and OSAS. Different indexes are extracted from the pupillogram to characterize pupil dynamics investigated in rest and under stationary stimulations. All possible sets of 3 and 4 indexes are used as features to train support vector machines (SVM) to identify the correct groups. The indexes providing optimal classification are identified. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.