Retinal changes may be associated with Alzheimer's

Neuroscientists at the University of California-Irvine have discovered that the retinas of laboratory mice, whose genes have been altered so they develop Alzheimer's disease, experience changes similar to those in the brains of humans who have the disease.
Alzheimer's, affects over 5 million people in the U.S. and is the leading cause of elderly dementia. Brain imaging techniques are useful, but retinal imaging could be less invasive, less expensive and easier to perform.
For a study appearing in the November issue of The American Journal of Pathology, UCI neuroscientist Zhiqun Tan and colleagues analyzed the retinas of Alzheimer's mice that had been treated with immunotherapy.
Specifically, in both the retinas and brains, there is an accumulation of amyloid plaque lesions, a hallmark of the disease in brain imaging tests. Researchers said that the findings will be crucial to developing retinal imaging technology that could help diagnose and treat people with Alzheimer's Disease.

Posted in: Alzheimer's disease, Dementia, Neuroimaging, Pathology