When many people hear the term “whiplash,” they think of a sore neck — a temporary inconvenience after a car crash or sudden impact. But for millions, that initial “inconvenience” lingers long past what scans and checkups suggest. Months — even a year later — they’re still battling dizziness, brain fog, emotional swings; a strange sense of being “off.”
They’re often told, “Everything looks fine. You should be fine.”
But they’re not.
That disconnect — between invisible suffering and measurable proof — is what led Brad Callan, PT, PhD, OCS, FAAOMPT, Assistant Professor in PNWU’s School of Physical Therapy, to ask a different question:
“What if chronic whiplash isn’t just a neck injury? What if something deeper — in the eyes or the brain — is being overlooked?”
To explore that theory, Dr. Callan and a small research team — including Antonio Vintimilla, PT, DPT, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Physical Therapy, along with collaborators from The Ohio State University — recruited 15 individuals living with chronic whiplash (lasting more than three months) and 15 healthy, age-matched controls.
Rather than relying on traditional visual observation, they used a digital eye-tracking tool called RightEye. With RightEye, they could record eye movement down to 0.4 degrees — precision far beyond what manual assessment can detect.
What they found was subtle — but striking.
Across 34 eye-movement variables associated with concussion, participants with chronic whiplash performed worse in 32 of them. Even on a basic cognitive screening, they showed measurable differences — despite never being diagnosed with a head injury.
“It made us confident there’s something happening in the ocular system — and likely the central nervous system — that hasn’t been acknowledged in chronic whiplash,” said Dr. Callan.
For decades, patients with long-term whiplash symptoms have been treated — or dismissed — as if their pain lives only in the neck. This study suggests otherwise. The relationship between the neck, brain, and eyes may be far more interconnected than standard imaging or orthopedic exams reveal.
And that revelation brings hope.
“Ocular examinations are simple, low-cost, reliable tools most clinicians already know how to perform,” explained Dr. Vintimilla. “We just didn’t know to apply them in this way.”
That means potential change doesn’t require expensive equipment or major redesigns in practice. It simply requires a new way of interpreting what is already in front of us.
Assistant Professor
PNWU School of Physical Therapy
Assistant Professor
PNWU School of Physical Therapy
A Small Study with Big Implications
Though modest in scale, the study’s provisional acceptance to Frontiers in Neurology, a high-impact peer-reviewed journal, signals the significance of its findings.
For Dr. Callan, the publication is less a finish line than a launching point.
“Hopefully this opens people’s eyes — literally and figuratively,” he said.
“It validates patients who’ve been told nothing is wrong, and it gives clinicians a new path toward treatment.”
With follow-up studies already underway, additional collaborations forming, and new screening models being tested, Dr. Callan is excited about the potential of the research, and perhaps more so, about the impact this work may have on patients who’ve been unseen for far too long.
“I want students to see that if you have an idea, you can turn it into action,” said Dr. Callan. “Research isn’t separate from patient care — it’s how we make it better.”