Alzheimer's and brain health could soon be detected with the help of an eye exam

According to researchers at Duke's Health, an eye exam may soon be enough to confirm a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease.

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The Duke Eye Center recently recruited and studied the retinas of more than 200 people to see if there were any differences between those with Alzheimer's disease and those who did not. The results of the study titled "Microvascular and neurodegenerative retinal changes in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment compared to control participants" were published in the latest issue of the journal Ophthalmology retina.

The results showed that people whose brains work well have a microscopic network of blood vessels in the retina, which can be observed with the help of an eye exam. This network of vessels resembling a web was much less pronounced in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

The data are based on retinal images of 133 healthy participants and 39 people with Alzheimer's disease. Age, sex and education level were adjusted for all cases and controls to eliminate the influence of bias in the results.

Ophthalmologist and retinal surgeon Duke, Sharon Fekrat, lead author of the study, said the differences were significant between the cases and the witnesses:

We measure blood vessels that can not be seen during a regular eye exam and we do this with a relatively recent noninvasive technology that takes high resolution images of very small blood vessels in the retina in just a few minutes. minutes. It is possible that these changes in the density of the blood vessels in the retina may reflect what is happening in the tiny blood vessels in the brain, perhaps before we can detect any change in cognition. "

Sharon Fekrat, lead author

The team discovered obvious signs of retinal blood vessel changes in people with mild cognitive impairment, a known precursor to Alzheimer's disease. This is due to changes in the retinal nerve layers associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease.

We know that changes occur in the brain in small blood vessels in people with Alzheimer's disease and, as the retina is an extension of the brain, we wanted to determine if these changes could be detected in the retina with the help of a new technology. it's less invasive and easy to obtain.

Dilraj S. Grewal, lead author

He added that they used non-invasive technology, called optical coherence tomography (OCTA) angiography, to measure the blood flow in each of the layers of the retina. He explained that some of the detected changes involved capillaries or blood vessels whose size was less than the width of a human hair.

Fekrat said: "In the end, the goal would be to use this technology to quickly detect Alzheimer's disease, before symptoms of memory loss become obvious, and to be able to follow these changes over time among clinical trial participants dealing with new Alzheimer's treatments. "

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, 2018 Research Grant to Prevent Unconstrained Blindness 2018 and the Karen L. Wrenn Award for Alzheimer's Disease.