Imagine going to the eye doctor and getting a cheap, non-invasive test that could help you fight dementia.
A doctor at UT Health San Antonio is working on it.
Margaret Flanagan, MD, is a neuropathologist — an expert in brain tissue and how it changes in the presence of diseases like Alzheimer's.
Flanagan said the retina is an extension of the brain.
"So it looks very similar to the brain under the microscope, and research in the past few years has described that you get the same amyloid beta plaques that you get in the brain in Alzheimer's, actually in the retina, as well," she said.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a retina scanner they suspected might pick up amyloid beta in the eye that could signal changes in the brain.
"Then I took them and I was able to quantify the amyloid beta using digital pathology to validate the findings and it matched up," she said.
The end goal is to eventually have a scan like this available to you when you get your eyes checked.
"Then people can just go right in and get this quick $20, $30 picture of their eye," she said. "And then it could tell you which things are there that will eventually result in some kind of dementia."
Then people could begin treatment before irreversible changes start to occur.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, about how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
