EYE tests could one day be used for the early detection of Alzheimer鈥檚 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鈥檚 syndrome goes on to develop symptoms of Alzheimer鈥檚. When of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues examined lens and brain tissue during post-mortems of people with Down鈥檚, they found that brain levels of amyloid protein correlated with those in the eye (PLoS One, ).
Clumps of amyloid protein in the brain are associated with Alzheimer鈥檚 in the rest of the population, so Goldstein suggests that scanning people鈥檚 eyes might be a non-invasive way to diagnose Alzheimer鈥檚, before other symptoms become apparent.
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