[The Epoch Times, March 26, 2023](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Li Yan) The eyes are not only the window to the soul, but also a reflection of a person’s cognitive health.
Therefore, researchers have been exploring how the eyes can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease (AD, dementia, dementia) before symptoms begin. By the time memory and behavior are affected, it is too late to treat the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating neurodegenerative disease and a leading cause of morbidity and death worldwide, says a study published in February in the journal Acta Neuropathologica. The pathology is not limited to the brain, but is also manifested in the neurosensory retina and has been shown to precede the onset of clinical dementia by decades.
“The eye is the window into the brain,” Dr. Christine Greer, an ophthalmologist and director of medical education at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Boca Raton, Fla., told CNN. The optic nerve and the retina, you can see directly into the nervous system.”
“Alzheimer’s disease starts in the brain decades before the first symptoms of memory loss,” Dr. Richard Isaacson, an Alzheimer’s disease prevention neurologist at the institute, told CNN. gone.”
Detecting the disease in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, when neuronal damage is limited, could allow for earlier intervention and improved treatment outcomes, the study reports. Therefore, exploring the retinal manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease and their relationship to brain pathology is an urgent priority.
If doctors can detect the disease at its earliest stages, then people can make healthy lifestyle choices and manage their “modifiable risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes,” Isaacson said.
eyes know
How early in the world can we see signs of cognitive decline? To find out, the study investigators collected retinal and brain tissue samples over 14 years from 86 donors with Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. This is the largest set of retinal samples ever studied.
“Our study provides the first in-depth analysis of neurosurgery in the human retina,” study author Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui, professor of neurosurgery and biomedicine at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, told CNN in a statement. The protein profile and molecular, cellular and structural effects of Alzheimer’s disease, and how they correspond to changes in brain and cognitive function.”
“These changes in the retina are associated with changes in parts of the brain called the endothalamus and temporal cortex, which are hubs for memory, navigation and time perception,” Koronio-Hamoy said.
The researchers then compared samples from donors with normal cognitive function to samples from people with mild cognitive impairment and patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
The study found that patients with Alzheimer’s and early cognitive decline had significantly increased beta-amyloid, a key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
The study found an 80 percent drop in microglia in people with cognitive problems. This is especially true for female patients. These cells are responsible for repairing and maintaining other cells, including clearing beta-amyloid from the brain and retina. In addition, markers of inflammation were also found.
The researchers found significantly greater numbers of immune cells surrounding amyloid-beta plaques, as well as other cells responsible for inflammation and cell and tissue death.
“It could be an equally important marker of disease progression,” said Dr. Richard Isaacson, an Alzheimer’s prevention neurologist in Boca Raton, who was not involved in the study.
“This suggests that these new eye tests may well help in early diagnosis (of Alzheimer’s disease),” he said.
The study found that tissue atrophy and inflammation in the distal retinal periphery were the most predictive of cognitive status.
“These findings may eventually lead to the development of imaging techniques that allow us to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease earlier and more accurately, and to monitor its progression non-invasively by looking at the eye,” Isaacson said. ◇
Responsible editor: Lin Yan#
