All in the eyes? Scans suggest progress with dementia diagnostics
The presence of potential early warning signs of cognitive decline in veins linking the retina to the brain could help with "putting together pieces of a puzzle," according to Ashleigh Barrett-Young of the University of Otago, New Zealand.
In a paper published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, researchers from the University of Otago and University of Virginia conclude that "measures of retinal health, particularly microvascular measures, successfully capture ADRD [Alzheimer's disease and related dementia] risk across several domains of known risk factors."
And while the researchers caution that it is "premature" for "real world" application of the potential diagnostic method, they proposed that retinal microvascular imaging could prove to be an "accessible, scalable, and relatively low-cost method of assessing ADRD risk among middle-aged adults."
The team say their scans revealed that a system of narrower arterioles, wider venules and thinner retinal nerve fibre layers carrying visual signals from the retina to the brain were associated with greater dementia risk.
"I was surprised that venules were associated with so many different domains of Alzheimer's disease – that suggests that it might be a particularly useful target for assessing dementia risk," Barrett-Young says of the "somewhat unexpected" scan outcome.
"Cognitive tests aren't sensitive enough in the early stages and a person may not be experiencing any decline yet, while other tests, like MRI and PET scanning, are expensive and not widely available," the researchers say, according to a University of Otago statement.
'Treatments for Alzheimer's and some other forms of dementia may be most effective if they're started early in the disease course," says Barrett-Young.
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