Reflections on the Utility of the Retina as a Biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease: A Literature Review

• Main Authors: Jennifer Ngolab, Patrick Honma, Robert A. Rissman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Adis, Springer Healthcare 2019-12-01
• Series: Neurology and Therapy
• Subjects: Alzheimer’s disease; Fundus camera imaging; Optical coherence tomography; Optical coherence tomography angiography; Retina; Retinal biomarker
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40120-019-00173-4

Abstract As a part of the central nervous system, the retina may reflect both physiologic processes and abnormalities related to diseases of the brain. Indeed, a concerted effort has been put forth to understand how Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology may manifest in the retina as a means to assess the state of the AD brain. The development and refinement of ophthalmologic techniques for studying the retina in vivo have produced evidence of retinal degeneration in AD diagnosed patients. In this review, we will discuss retinal imaging techniques implemented to study the changes in AD retina as well as highlight the recent efforts made to correlate such findings to other clinical hallmarks of AD to assess the viability of the retina as a biomarker for AD.