Why carry out this study?

Biomarkers of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases are greatly needed to enhance clinical trials design and recruitment. Presently neuroimaging and CSF biomarkers are expensive and invasive to perform and are considered impractical for large-scale studies. The field has focused on blood-based biomarkers and is now currently working on the identification of proteins in plasma/serum that may reflect neuropathology in brain. The retinal presents a readily accessible tissue for monitoring the brain and could potentially be used in combination with or as a substitute for current AD biomarkers.

Our review focused on currently available data on the retina and AD. We summarize what has been found to date and discuss potential problems and benefits that the data currently generated has yielded.

What was learned from the study?

The human retina may be an important CNS location to detect Alzheimer’s pathology.

Data on retinal involvement in AD and neurodegenerative diseases have been controversial and inconsistent. The reasons behind this may be technical or procedural in nature.

Standardization, round-robin studies and additional scientific meetings are needed to determine how the retinal can be used to denote neurodegenerative disease pathology.