Eyes hint at hidden mental-health conditions (2019)

Eyes hint at hidden mental-health conditions (2019)(nature.com)

116 points by svrma 5 years ago | 42 comments

khr 5 years ago |

Not to take away from some of these comments, but the article does not mention anything about casual observation of the eyes signalling mental health issues. The article is highlighting research on diagnosing disorders of the brain using ophthalmological methods (e.g. optical coherence tomography to measure retinal thickness, electroretinography to measure electrical signaling in rods and cones, and angiography to assess retinal vasculature). Apparently, these non-invasive methods may be used as an additional diagnostic tool in diagnosis of a variety of disorders, and may even be early indicators of brain disorders that have not yet manifested themselves in psychological disturbances.

rmrfstar 5 years ago | |

>and may even be early indicators of brain disorders that have not yet manifested themselves in psychological disturbances

It's only a matter of time before someone as unscrupulous as ClearviewAI develops a phrenology tool for identifying psychological disturbances based on "crazy eyes", which will be used extensively by state security services to manufacture suspicion where none is warranted. False positives are a feature not a bug. See, e.g. drug sniffing dogs and [1].

This article will be cited in the marketing material. It will not matter one iota that the research does not actually support that kind of application.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651

svrma 5 years ago | |

This is my takeaway as well.

violetgarden 5 years ago |

This is just personal, but once I had to help my aunt during an extreme bipolar episode. She was violent, paranoid, and hallucinating. One of the most haunting things from that time was her eyes. They seemed hard and staring. When she looked at you, it didn’t feel like it was her in there. Her eyes weren’t shiny and expressive like normal. There was just something frantic and non human in them. Maybe it was just the extreme stress from feeling like people were coming for her, but it’s interesting to hear another avenue for getting insight into mental health disorders.

sandworm101 5 years ago | |

There is a deep part of our brain that controls eye contact. Babies know to stare at faces, even when they cannot recognize one from another. It is a common evolved trait. Dogs, lions, deer, seals, chipmunks, crows, some would say even sharks ... all sorts of animals will "look us in the eye". We expect to see a certain code of behaviour re eye contact. When a person or animal is subject to something that alters that covention we interpret that as "crazy eyes". A dog in pain will look a human in the eye. A dog on hallucinationogenic drugs will not. We must be careful whenever we are interpreting such things as our interpretation can be based more on expectations than reality. The shark is probably not meeting our gaze. Rather, we see an eyeball and expect that it is acting a certain way.

Spend time talking to someone with a false eye. You might not understand why their face seems a little odd. You probably cannot tell which eye is fake (false eyes are far more common than people realize) but you know something is not right.

ddorian43 5 years ago | |

Yes the eyes change when you are manic https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/take-charge-bipolar-...

treeman79 5 years ago | |

Sounds about right.

Was in a trapped situation. Not allowed to leave; flashback to childhood assault.

Started seeing seeing things in effort to get away. Was not really seeing anyone trying to talk to me.

0/10 would not recommend. Also if a person wants to leave a situation, for the love anything, let them.

motohagiography 5 years ago |

The privacy impact of this is immense, as if you can imagine doing ML training on millions of mugshots to create a model for scanning people's eyes, we've now got super-fancy phrenology. Who needs morality when you have biostatistical markers.

It's conceivable we could probably do the same with gait and voice analysis for other issues as well.

meowface 5 years ago | |

Drug use would possibly be a confounder when doing that, unless use of certain drugs is one of the attributes you're looking for.

treeman79 5 years ago | | |

Also this could be Many minutes to hours after a situation. People generally tire out eventually.

m463 5 years ago | |

You reminded me of Tony Soprano and "manson lamps"

DougN7 5 years ago |

When I saw the title I thought of people I know who have “crazy eyes” (as I’ve heard it called). I can’t even define what it is, but know it when I see it, and often that person seems off somehow. I’ve been trying to decide for a while if it’s real or some sort of confirmation bias after I know them better.

torben-friis 5 years ago | |

There's a scene in Queen's Gambit where one character tells another something along the lines of "I had an alcoholic father. I see your eyes and I know what it is".

Having an alcoholic father myself, I know exactly what that line means. It really is a very specific look, though as you say it's hard to explain to someone.

_huayra_ 5 years ago | |

I had the exact same thought. I think these "crazy eyes" come from a predisposition to view other people (e.g. other skin colors, genders, or just other humans) as a threat. It's always that fixed stare, unblinking face, and enlarged pupils. It almost is like right before one's cat decides to launch a sneak attack on your leg as your round the corner, but usually more dangerous (either physically or emotionally).

jhowell 5 years ago | | |

This is going on in Petaluma, CA right now. A mom claimed people of color attempted to kidnap her children. She describes the eyes of the "perpetrators" below. Fortunately, according to the police investigation, her children were not in danger, from the people who were reported to the police.

There is a lot of speculation about transpired given conflicting video, police statements and eyewitness accounts. Mrs. Sorensen has since deleted her social media accounts and stopped giving interviews. I saw her appeal to mother's to be more guarded with their children:

“There is no other explanation as to why they were doing that besides they were just building the courage,” Sorensen said. “The gentleman looked at me, and his eyes were huge. He saw what was going on, and I just yelled for help.”

https://www.intheknow.com/2020/12/17/alleged-kidnapping-kati...

treeman79 5 years ago | | |

Spouse Used to suffer severe Panic attacks. Crazy eyes are a thing. Facts become meaningless.

There is usually a building up period, like your cat stalking analogy.

If your hyper alert to signs, you can often stop it before it gets serious. Of course then your on edge constantly for signs.

graeme 5 years ago |

Note that the article included concussions and multiple sclerosis.

If anyone had a concussion and has symptoms months later, you can do visual rehab exercises to help address long run symptoms. This + neck rehab resolved my post concussion symptoms very rapidly. They had persisted for months until that.

Now I’m wondering if continuing to do those exercises can affect the odds of brain lesions. I know my visual tracking is still not 100%. Do things go in both directions: lesions —> vision issues, improving visual tracking —> cause brain to improve lesions through focus to that region. Or would it only be one way? Very interesting to see the retina/optic nerve are from the same tissue as the brain.

bussiere 5 years ago |

A lot of crazy people that 've met have wide open Eye like if they are always surprised. But i think it's more the medication than a condition. Or it could be a biais.

Tarq0n 5 years ago | |

Crazy is a very imprecise term.

throwaway98797 5 years ago |

People tense muscles unconsciously. Forcing eyes open is noticeable.

What drives folks to force eyes open is fear that aren’t seeing all that they should.

NiceWayToDoIT 5 years ago |

I remember watching some youtube neurologist said "Eyes are only part of the brain visible outside" and then again old saying "The eyes are the mirror of the soul"

vmchale 5 years ago |

I read that rapidly darting eye movements are characteristic of cluster A personality disorders (schizotypal, ...)

Wonder if it reflects something in the eyes.

webmobdev 5 years ago | |

It should make for an interesting study to map eye characteristics with specific personality types. (For example, I suspect that anxious personality types make less eye contact, and or often short-sighted).

dillondoyle 5 years ago |

I'm not implying by any means that gender or sexual expression is a mental-health condition - but i've always thought my 'gaydar' pings with certain eyes, specifically male eyes with longer more 'feminine' lashes. probably confirmation bias but I've wondered if others have noticed this

amelius 5 years ago | |

Some women once told me they think eyes with more pronounced lashes make men crazy attractive. So I suppose there's nothing really "gay" about it. Some male actors wear mascara (e.g. Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean), making them more attractive to women, I suppose. I'd love to see some science behind this though.

dillondoyle 5 years ago | | |

oh totally and I agree that the long lashes are cute! I'm like 99% sure I have built up this correlation/intuition theory in my mind because I tend to only look closely at guy's eyes when I'm flirting/dating with them lol.

Though there was an ML study a while ago about 'gaydar' face recognition - I remember it was ripped apart on HN. From my limited knowledge I don't think there are one or even a few significant gene expressions for homosexuality that we know of so seems probably not true.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/07/artificia...

webmobdev 5 years ago |

This is anecdotal, but I've noticed that prepubescent kids under a lot of stress and anxiety often wear glasses at a young age - either they have very strict parents with lots of rules (and sometimes anger issues) or parents who are having marital issues that make the child feel very insecure.

war1025 5 years ago | |

I always assumed the all kids having glasses anymore thing was just because they spend way too much time on phones and tablets watching tv.

It used to be common knowledge that sitting too close to a screen messed up your vision, and somehow we threw that advice out the window.

jaggederest 5 years ago | | |

Last I heard the major contributor to childhood myopia was a lack of outdoor light exposure. Screen time is a red herring compared to spending daylight hours outside.

https://www.businessinsider.com/kids-that-play-outside-need-...

stevewodil 5 years ago | | |

It is a myth that sitting too close to a screen will cause your eyesight to deteriorate. Time spent using screens contributes to eyestrain, but not a change in vision (supposedly)

numpad0 5 years ago | | |

What if it wasn’t? There were few anecdotal miracle stories that excessive VR usage fixed cross eyes and shortsightedness for some people. Don’t make sense, unless mental well-being had been one part of the cause all along.

Not to say everyone with vision problems should jump into dubious “practices” like playing VR games all day long or start taking some drugs, no, but I think a link between vision and mind is an interesting possibility.

boiledrope 5 years ago |

Eyes are brain

elric 5 years ago | |

It's a bit of an oversimplification, but it's not too far off the mark. Human vision is pretty poor in terms of resolution and distance. But if you stop and think about it, it's incredible that we see as well as we do, or even at all! Proper vision requires a huge amount of brain real estate. The coordination of muscles involved in movements is incredibly complex. The eyeball is so special that it's got immune privileges no other body part has. The retina can detect a single photon hitting it.

GeorgeTirebiter 5 years ago | | |

Yes, and... "However, the neural circuitry in your eye only passes a signal along to the brain if several photons are detected at about the same time in neighboring rod cells. Therefore, even though your eye is capable of detecting a single, isolated photon, your brain is not capable of perceiving it. "

Also, evolutionarily, it appears as if eyes were evolved 3 separate times. And: "Eyes and other sensory organs probably evolved before the brain" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye (which is outstanding on this topic)

meowface 5 years ago | | |

As the article states, certain parts of the eye like the retina are actually considered a part of the brain, too. They form from the same embryonic tissue that forms the brain.