Eyes are potential gateway to quicker diagnosis, treatment, UCI study suggests
The eyes may be the windows to the soul, but new research indicates they also may mirror a brain ravaged by Alzheimer's disease.
UC Irvine neuroscientists have found that retinas in mice genetically altered to have Alzheimer's undergo changes similar to those that occur in the brain - most notably the accumulation of amyloid plaque lesions.
In addition, the scientists discovered that when Alzheimer's therapies are tested in such mice, retinal changes that result might predict how the treatments will work in humans better than changes in mouse brain tissue.
These findings are key to developing retinal imaging technology that may help diagnose and treat people with Alzheimer's, which afflicts 5.3 million people in the U.S. and is the leading cause of elderly dementia. Brain imaging techniques are being tested, but retinal imaging could be less invasive, less expensive and easier to perform.
"It's important to discover the pathological changes before an Alzheimer's patient dies," said Zhiqun Tan, a UCI neuroscientist leading the research. "Brain tissue isn't transparent, but retinas are. I hope in the future we'll be able to diagnose the disease and track its progress by looking into the eyes."
For a study appearing in the November issue of the American Journal of Pathology, Tan and colleagues analyzed the retinas of Alzheimer's mice that had been treated with immunotherapy.
Vaccinated mice performed better on learning and memory tests than untreated mice, and their brains had fewer plaque lesions. Similarly, retinas in the treated mice had fewer lesions than in untreated mice. However, the treated mice's retinas had worse inflammation and vascular changes associated with Alzheimer's than did their brains.