Researchers at the University of Otago are exploring the possibility that a simple eye test may make diagnosing the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease when people are much younger. Parts of our retina have previously been proposed as biomarkers for Alzheimer’s, but researchers from Otago’s Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit have been investigating the retina’s potential to indicate cognitive change earlier in life.
They observed that the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and the ganglion cell layer (GCL) was associated with cognitive performance in both childhood and adulthood, while thinner RNFL was linked to a decline in processing speed between childhood and adulthood.
the authors Ashleigh and Richie Poulton noted that further longitudinal studies are necessary to determine whether retinal thinning precede cognitive decline.
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