Can Eye Tests Be An Early Indicator For Alzheimer’s?

Scottish researchers from Dundee University are to head a £1.1m ($2.02m), three-year study to explore whether a simple eye test could be used to identify the onset of dementia. At this stage, there is evidence to suggest that changes to the veins and arteries in the eye could be linked to a number of ailments, including strokes, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s.

A team from Dundee University’s school of computing will be working in collaboration with colleagues in Edinburgh and will be using specially developed software to analyse high-definition images of the eye. They will be looking for any physiological changes to the ocular blood vessels, indicating changes in the brain, which could act as an early sign of the disease.

Emanuel Trucco, Professor of computational vision, is leading the project. He said: “If you can look into someone’s eyes using an inexpensive machine and discover something which may suggest a risk of developing dementia, then that’s a very interesting proposition. “There is the promise of early warning in a non-invasive way and there is also the fact that we might even be able to use the test to differentiate between different types of dementia.”

Chief executive of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Professor Philip Nelson, said: “The UK faces a huge challenge over the coming decades, we have an aging population and a likely rise in the numbers of people suffering from dementia.

“These research projects will improve our abilities to detect and understand dementia and how the disease progresses.”