Article: Potential to identify risk of Alzheimer’s in middle age
Source: University of Otago (New Zealand)
Published: February 11, 2022
Diseases of old age, such as Alzheimer's disease, are often diagnosed when symptoms of cognitive decline are quite far along and early detection via neuroimaging is prohibitively expensive. Investigators in New Zealand conducted a study to examine whether retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and ganglion cell layer (GCL) thickness as assessed through routine retinal imaging (ocular coherence tomography, OCT) could be predictive of cognitive decline and function from childhood to middle age, that is relatively early in life compared to the age of Alzheimer's disease onset. The longitudinal cohort study involved 865 participants from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study who were born between 1972 and 1973 and followed for 45 years. Cognitive performance (Full Scale IQ, processing speed, perceptual reasoning, and verbal comprehension) was measured at ages 7, 9, and 11 years and OCT scans of RNFL and GCL thickness were performed at age 45 years. The researchers report that in this study cohort, thinner RNFL and GCL were associated with lower global cognition scores (Full Scale IQ) in
childhood and at age 45 years, but not of global cognitive decline from childhood to adulthood. However, thinner RNFL was associated with specifically greater decline in processing speed from childhood to adulthood. They conclude that RNFL may be a useful biomarker of cognitive function, but that further longitudinal studies are needed to determine whether retinal thinning precedes cognitive decline.
My rating of this study: ⭐⭐
Barrett-Young A, Ambler A, Cheyne K, et al.
"Associations Between Retinal Nerve Fiber Layer and Ganglion Cell Layer
in Middle Age and Cognition From Childhood to Adulthood." JAMA Ophthalmology. 140(3):262-268. 10 February 2022. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2021.6082
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