Cerebral small vessel disease is the one of the most prevalent causes of vascular cognitive impairment. We aimed to find objective and process-based indicators related to memory function to assist in the detection of memory impairment in patients with cerebral small vessel disease. Thirty-nine cerebral small vessel disease patients and 22 healthy controls were invited to complete neurological examinations, neuropsychological assessments, and eye tracking tasks. Eye tracking indicators were recorded and analyzed in combination with imaging features. The cerebral small vessel disease patients scored lower on traditional memory task and performed worse on eye tracking memory task performance compared to the healthy controls. The cerebral small vessel disease patients exhibited longer visit duration and more visit count within areas of interest and targets and decreased percentage value of total visit duration on target images to total visit duration on areas of interest during decoding stage among all levels. Our results demonstrated the cerebral small vessel disease patients performed worse in memory scale and eye tracking memory task, potentially due to their heightened attentional allocation to nontarget images during the retrieval stage. The eye tracking memory task could provide process-based indicators to be a beneficial complement to memory assessment and new insights into mechanism of memory impairment in cerebral small vessel disease patients.

中文翻译：

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脑小血管疾病患者的记忆缺陷：来自眼动追踪技术的证据

脑小血管疾病是血管性认知障碍的最常见原因之一。我们的目的是寻找与记忆功能相关的客观和基于过程的指标，以协助检测脑小血管疾病患者的记忆障碍。邀请 39 名脑小血管病患者和 22 名健康对照者完成神经学检查、神经心理学评估和眼动追踪任务。记录眼动指标并结合成像特征进行分析。与健康对照组相比，脑小血管疾病患者在传统记忆任务中得分较低，在眼动记忆任务中表现较差。脑小血管病患者在各级别中，在感兴趣区域和目标内的访问持续时间较长、访问次数较多，并且解码阶段目标图像总访问持续时间占感兴趣区域总访问持续时间的百分比值下降。我们的结果表明，脑小血管疾病患者在记忆量表和眼动追踪记忆任务中表现较差，这可能是由于他们在检索阶段对非目标图像的注意力分配增加了。眼动追踪记忆任务可以提供基于过程的指标，作为记忆评估的有益补充，并为脑小血管疾病患者的记忆障碍机制提供新的见解。