EYE tests could one day be used for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease, thanks to the discovery of a link between the amount of a characteristic protein in the brain and levels of the same protein in the eye.
Virtually everyone with Down's syndrome goes on to develop symptoms of Alzheimer's. When Lee Goldstein of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues examined lens and brain tissue during post-mortems of people with Down's, they found that brain levels of amyloid protein correlated with those in the eye (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010659).
Clumps of amyloid protein in the brain are associated with Alzheimer's in the rest of the population, so Goldstein suggests that scanning people's eyes might be a non-invasive way to diagnose Alzheimer's, before other symptoms become apparent.
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Sunday, 30 May 2010
Down's eyes are clue to Alzheimer's disease
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