More than meets the eye: Stabilizing nystagmus symptoms with AI-powered smart glasses

A team of undergraduate students in the Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Design Team course has created smart glasses to help patients with nystagmus, a condition causing involuntary, repetitive eye movements.

This condition often results from various neurological conditions including neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, multiple sclerosis, or traumatic brain injuries. Nystagmus makes reading, recognizing faces, and maintaining balance a daily challenge, said Dennis Ngo, a third-year biomedical engineering student, who is co-leading the project team with Archis Shankaran.

“Currently, the only ways to alleviate nystagmus symptoms are medications and surgery. Those medications must be administered around the clock and to toxic levels as the condition worsens, causing severe side effects. Surgery often fails and is not personalized,” said Ngo.

The students will present their project on April 29 at the Whiting School of Engineering’s Design Day—an annual event showcasing students’ innovation and ability to translate theoretical knowledge into real-world solutions.

“iCrutch,” the team’s solution, looks like an ordinary pair of eyeglasses. The key difference is two infrared micro-cameras embedded in the frames that monitor eye motion. The team’s machine learning algorithm identifies abnormal eye movements and delivers a corrective pattern via Bluetooth to electrodes surgically implanted in the wearer’s eye muscles.

Patients must wear these special glasses full-time to monitor their condition and stabilize their vision.

“It’s essentially a real-time feedback loop that recognizes and compensates for the symptoms on the fly,” said Ngo. “Within milliseconds, the algorithm can account for different lighting conditions, head movements, and camera angles while analyzing complex eye movements.”

The team has partnered with clinical mentors from the Johns Hopkins departments of Neurology and Ophthalmology, including Kemar Green, assistant professor of neurology, who provided expertise in eye movement disorders and the use of artificial intelligence, data science, and precision medicine to treat neurologic diseases. Additional mentors include Michael Repka, professor of ophthalmology, and Edward Kuwera, assistant professor of ophthalmology.

“Our project has been successful because of a strong and supportive team dynamic. With such a multidisciplinary project, being able to openly communicate, give and receive feedback, and trust each other’s expertise is key in overcoming obstacles and staying motivated,” said Ngo.

Shankaran said the invention has the potential to help patients see more clearly and improve their quality of life, as well as to reduce the need for ineffective or invasive treatments. In the future, the team will improve their prototype for accuracy and reliability based on performance data from testing with real patients.

“By addressing this unmet need we hope to make a real difference for people living with nystagmus,” he said.

The design team also includes Kenzi Griffith, Simren Shah, Immanuel Etoh, Esha Venkat, Evan Batten, and Travis Tran.