ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT06047717Updated Aug 25, 2026

Vision Loss Impact on Navigation in Virtual Reality

An interventional study of Virtual Reality Driving Task in Stroke, Ischemic, Quadrantanopia and Hemianopsia, Homonymous, sponsored by University of Rochester. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 21 Years to 75 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-25.

Sponsored by University of Rochester · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Nov 2023; still recruiting 2 years 11 months later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
40
Allocation
Non-randomized
Ages
21 Years to 75 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this research is to better understand the impact of cortically-induced blindness (CB) and the compensatory strategies subjects with this condition may develop on naturalistic behaviors, specifically, driving. Using a novel Virtual Reality (VR) program, the researchers will gather data on steering behavior in a variety of simulated naturalistic environments. Through the combined use of computer vision, deep learning, and gaze-contingent manipulations of the visual field, this work will test the central hypothesis that changes to visually guided steering behaviors in CB are a consequence of changes to the visual sampling and processing of task-related motion information (i.e., optic flow).

02

Conditions studied

  • Stroke, Ischemic
  • Quadrantanopia
  • Hemianopsia, Homonymous
  • Hemianopia, Homonymous
  • Hemianopia
  • Hemianopsia
  • Occipital Lobe Infarct
  • Visual Field Defect, Peripheral
  • Vision Loss Partial
  • Quadrantanopsia
  • Stroke Hemorrhagic

Keywords

  • Occipital stroke
  • Vision loss after stroke
  • Vision recovery
  • Vision restoration
  • Partial vision loss
  • Homonymous quadrantanopsia
  • Homonymous quadrantanopia
  • stroke
03

In context

Ischemic Stroke

2,612 studies on the registry are indexed under Ischemic Stroke; 971 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 40 is below the median of 120 across 1,776 interventional studies indexed under Ischemic Stroke.

Browse Ischemic Stroke studies →

Lead sponsor

University of Rochester is the lead sponsor of 729 studies on the registry; 116 are open to participants now.

Of its 56 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 44 (79%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
21 Years to 75 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Eligibility criteria

Cortically Blind Group:

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Residents of the United States or Canada
  • Presence of one-sided stroke or stroke-like damage to primary visual cortex or its immediate afferent white matter sustained within the specified age range of 21 - 75 years (verified by MRI and/or CT scans)
  • Reliable visual field defects in both eyes (homonymous defects) as measured by Humphrey or equivalent perimetry.
  • Willing, able, and competent to provide their own
  • Cognitively able, responsible to understand written and oral instructions in English
  • Emmetropic or else wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality headset

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Those who have never driven or earned a drivers' license
  • Past or present ocular disease interfering with visual acuity
  • Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) worse than 20/40 in either eye
  • Sustained damage to the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus
  • Presence of diffuse, whole-brain degenerative processes
  • Presence of brain damage deemed by study staff to potentially interfere with outcome measures
  • History of traumatic brain injury
  • Documented history of drug/alcohol abuse
  • Diagnosis of cognitive or seizure disorders
  • Diagnosis of one-sided attentional neglect

Control Group:

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Normal or corrected-to-normal vision, who are between the ages of 21 and 75 years of age, roughly matched to the age of CB subjects enrolled above
  • Competent and responsible, as determined by the Principal Investigator
  • Willing, able, and competent to provide their own informed consent
  • Normal cognitive abilities, be able to understand written and oral instructions in English
  • Emmetropic or else wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality headset

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Subjects who have never driven or earned a drivers' license
  • BCVA worse than 20/40 in either eye
  • Presence of vision loss from ocular diseases or disorders
  • Presence of a visual field defect
  • Inability to wear corrective contact lenses inside the virtual reality helmet if required to see clearly
  • Subjects with a history of neurological disorders
  • Subjects with a history of TBI
  • Persons who lack the competence or are otherwise unable to perform the visual testing as directed.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Non-randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
40 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Cortically Blind Cohort

    Persons who have sustained cortical blindness will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.

    Other: Virtual Reality Driving Task

  • Experimental
    Virtual Reality (VR) Driving Task: Healthy Control Cohort

    Healthy controls with no vision loss will perform a driving task in VR, in which they must steer through a series of parameterized turns while maintaining their virtual vehicle centered between the two red lines delineating the "road" edge.

    Other: Virtual Reality Driving Task

Interventions

  • OtherVirtual Reality Driving Task

    Participants will steer a virtual car with the goal of staying in the center of a single-lane roadway while traveling at a constant speed of 26.6 m/s (approximately 60 miles/hr). The roadway alternates between a series of straights and turns of different radii to both the left and the right. This allows for careful control of task difficulty, and for the repeated presentation of specific conditions across multiple "trials" (i.e. turns in the road) in a randomized order. In addition, the density of the visual texture elements in the virtual environment that provide optic flow (OF) signal is also varied. The low-density OF condition has no road texture or foliage, and only the solid road edges on a flat-black ground plane. The medium-density OF condition has sparse textural elements distributed on the ground plane, and the high-density OF condition has high density road texture and a canopy of road-side trees that provide texture extending far above the horizon.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Virtual Reality (VR) Lane Deviation / Offset

    Virtual lane offset is a measure of driving accuracy, which involves computing the divergence (in virtual meters) from the center of the single-lane virtual roadway, relative to the position of the driver's head and averaged over the duration of each turn. The researchers will compare the variance of lane offset in virtual meters between Cortically Blind (CB) and control subjects.

    Time frame: Day 0

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
08

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Started Nov 2023 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Oct 2028, 59 months after the start.

Of 572 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Ischemic Stroke, half reached primary completion within 28 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 14 and three quarters within 48. This study's planned 59 months is above that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 653 studies reached it within 27 months; a quarter within 14 and three quarters within 48.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Sep 8, 2023
First posted
Sep 21, 2023
StartActual
Nov 28, 2023
Primary completionEst.
Oct 2028
CompletionEst.
Oct 2028
Last update
Aug 25, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 25, 2026, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
09

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT06047717
Collaborators
Rochester Institute of Technology
Responsible party
Krystel Huxlin (James V. Aquavella Professor of Ophthalmology, Associate Chair for Research, Dept. Ophthalmology, University of Rochester) — Principal investigator
First posted
Sep 21, 2023
Start date
Nov 28, 2023
Primary completion
Oct 2028 (estimated)
Completion
Oct 2028 (estimated)
Last update
Aug 25, 2026

Study contacts

Evan Burr
Contact
Evan_Burr@URMC.Rochester.edu
585-275-5234

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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