Eyes may hold clue to early Alzheimer's diagnosis

8 November 2009

US scientists, working with genetically altered mice, have found that the changes that take place in Alzheimer's disease brains also occur in retinas, including the accumulation of amyloid plaque lesions.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Pathology.

The University of California at Irvine researchers discovered that when Alzheimer's therapies are tested in mice, retinal changes might predict how treatments work in humans better than changes in mouse brain tissue.

Dr Marie Janson, Director of Development at the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said:

"Although this research only involves mice, human retinal imaging technology for Alzheimer's patients is being developed. Alzheimer's Research Trust scientists in the UK are investigating the connection between glaucoma and dementia among other eye-focused studies.

"Currently we can only understand the disease process of individual Alzheimer's patients post-mortem. The transparent nature of retinas, unlike brain tissue, may enable us to scrutinise – and treat – the disease better while patients are still alive. This also provides a pathway to improving diagnosis in a relatively unobtrusive manner; when two-thirds of British dementia patients remain undiagnosed, such a breakthrough is urgently needed.

"We look forward to seeing how this research avenue develops."

(Source: Alzheimer's Research Trust: American Journal of Pathology: October 2009)

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Article Comments

Comment from: Joseph J. Sivak MD | 8/11/2009 9:23:10 AM
This is interesting, since we consider changes in visual-spatial judgement, to be one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's. Since the optic nerve is the second cranial nerve, it is neurologically pretty closely linked to the actual brain. (That is not a lot of synapses going to other pathways in other directions). We consider the visual spatial issues to be higher up, around the parietal lobe etc, perhaps studying lower down around the eye and even up in the visual cortex (occipital) can tell us more, in terms of truly understanding the pathological process and thereby working towards better and more effective treatments and an ultimate cure.