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Research programmePsilmi for PTSD

TRACE

Trauma Response Assessment and Clinical Evaluation

Objective measurements for more individualised PTSD care and treatment development

Explore the programme
  1. Synchronised measurements
  2. Patterns across signals
  3. Change during treatment
Conceptual illustration — not research data

TRACE brings together clinical research and technology development to investigate how objective measurements could help us understand post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and follow change during treatment. Built on Stardots’ Psilmi platform, the programme connects the development of PTSD-related measures with clinical validation, treatment follow-up and future collaborations in drug development. Its purpose is to turn richer measurements into clinically meaningful information: evidence that could support more individualised care and help researchers develop better treatments.

A clearer picture of change in PTSD

PTSD can cause profound distress and disrupt everyday life. Understanding a person’s experience remains central to assessment, which relies largely on interviews and self-reported symptoms. Structured clinical interviews provide important information, but require trained staff and substantial time, making frequent follow-up difficult. TRACE addresses a complementary need: scalable, objective measures that could add a more detailed view of symptom severity and treatment-related change.

Psilmi combines synchronised measurements of pupil dynamics, eye movements and cognitive performance. Using contact-free eye tracking, TRACE investigates patterns across these signals rather than treating a single measurement as the whole picture. The aim is to explore whether eye-movement and pupil biosignatures can add useful information alongside clinical assessment. These measurements are intended to complement interviews, self-reports and clinicians’ judgement, not replace diagnostic criteria or the conversation between a patient and their care team.

Clinical practice

Clinical assessment

  • Interviews
  • Self-reports
  • Clinicians’ judgement

Stardots · Psilmi

Objective measures

  • Pupil dynamics
  • Eye movements
  • Cognitive performance
A complementary viewIntended to complement clinical assessment, not replace diagnostic criteria.

Building clinical evidence

A research project supported by Vinnova provides an initial clinical validation step within the wider TRACE programme. It builds on an ongoing PTSD study comparing intensive exposure-based treatment with traditional weekly treatment. Measurements from people with PTSD will be studied alongside those from trauma-exposed participants without PTSD and a reference group without trauma exposure or PTSD. This comparison is important: a useful PTSD-related measure must be examined in relation to trauma exposure itself, not only against a reference group without that experience.

Ongoing PTSD study

Intensive exposure-based treatment
Traditional weekly treatment

Participant groups

  1. People with PTSD
  2. Trauma-exposed participants without PTSD
  3. Reference group without trauma exposure or PTSD

Next step

An analysis model is tested in a separate validation cohort
Why three groupsA useful PTSD-related measure must be examined in relation to trauma exposure itself.

Supported by Vinnova

Partners

The Vinnova-supported work brings together Stardots, Region Stockholm and Uppsala University, with clinical and scientific expertise from Karolinska Institutet.

  • StardotsStardots contributes Psilmi, signal analysis and product development.
  • Region StockholmThe PTSD Competence Centre at Psychiatry Southwest, Region Stockholm, brings clinical needs and a specialist validation environment.
  • Uppsala UniversityUppsala University’s Departments of Psychology and Information Technology contribute expertise in eye tracking, signal processing, modelling and machine learning.
  • Karolinska InstitutetClinical and scientific expertise.

The research asks whether the measurements relate to clinical symptom severity and capture change during treatment. An analysis model will also be tested in a separate validation cohort, an important step towards understanding how well it works beyond the data used to develop it. Whether the signals could help predict treatment outcomes is an exploratory question, not an established capability.

Connecting evidence with treatment development

The same evidence could create opportunities for collaboration with pharmaceutical research teams, including large global companies developing treatments for PTSD. With appropriate validation, objective measures could help characterise differences between study participants, follow treatment-related change and investigate patterns of response. Over time, this could support research into patient stratification: understanding which characteristics distinguish groups that respond differently to treatment. TRACE aims to build the measurement and evidence base needed for such work, linking clinical questions with practical tools for treatment development.

Future research could also explore the relevance of these measures for veterans living with PTSD in Europe and the United States. The ambition is to bring the same clinically grounded approach to settings where understanding individual differences and following treatment response could be valuable, through new research collaborations.

Responsible research and validation

TRACE is a research and development programme. Its PTSD measures and proposed decision-support applications require clinical validation before their role in care can be established. New studies and use of patient data require appropriate ethics review, consent and data-protection arrangements, with patient needs guiding development.

About Psilmi

Psilmi is Stardots’ modular measurement and analysis platform, developed with researchers at Uppsala University to study human function and treatment-related change. Its RDoC-oriented approach draws on the Research Domain Criteria framework, which connects biological and behavioural measures with dimensions of function. This broader research perspective offers potential across diagnostic boundaries, while each application requires its own validation. TRACE brings that platform to a specific clinical challenge: PTSD.

Biological and behavioural measures

Psilmi

Pupil dynamics, eye movements and cognitive performance

RDoC-oriented

Dimensions of function

Research Domain Criteria

A research perspective across diagnostic boundaries

Validated per applicationEach application requires its own validation.

Discuss a TRACE research collaboration

We welcome conversations with clinical researchers, trauma-care teams, pharmaceutical and CNS development teams, and potential veteran-care research collaborators. If your work could help connect meaningful measurement with better evidence for PTSD treatment, we would like to hear from you. Contact Stardots at info@stardots.se to explore a TRACE research collaboration.

info@stardots.se