On 11 March, researchers from North Carolina (US) published findings on comparisons between the retinal microvasculature of participants with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and control participants in the journal Ophthalmology Retina.
There is a growing interest in possibilities to identify people at risk of developing dementia as early as possible. In this context, conscious efforts are being made to identify faster and more accessible screening techniques that are neither invasive nor too costly. Recent studies have found indications that changes in the eyes could be possible indicators of cognitive changes as well.
The current study involved 39 people living with AD, 37 participants with MCI and eye scans of 133 healthy control participants. All participants were aged 50 or older. The study team reported that out of 235 imaged participants, 42 eye scans had to be excluded either due to poor scan quality or due to motion artefacts, explaining that some of the participants with AD were fatigued easily and more prone to fixation errors.
Looking at the results of their analyses, the team noted that indeed there were significant observable differences between the measures for people with AD, MCI and the control participants. Furthermore, the analyses also showed significant correlations between some of the parameters used and scores in a pen and paper test for global cognition among all participants. Although interesting, further research is needed since this study did not investigate if there are changes over time.