Researchers have found in a retrospective study after examining 50,000 optical coherence tomography (OCT) images from a large database that thicknesses of several different retinal layers were significantly associated with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease polygenic risk scores. Further higher baseline thickness of two specific retinal layers was also significantly associated with poorer clinical cognitive performance in the future
The new study has been published in the British Journal of Opthamology.
A study was done to evaluate the potential of retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) measurements and polygenic risk scores (PRS) to identify people at risk of cognitive impairment.
Using OCT images from 50 342 UK Biobank participants, we examined associations between retinal layer thickness and genetic risk for neurodegenerative disease and combined these metrics with PRS to predict baseline cognitive function and future cognitive deterioration. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used to predict cognitive performance. P values for retinal thickness analyses are false-discovery-rate-adjusted.
Results
Higher Alzheimer’s disease PRS was associated with a thicker inner nuclear layer (INL), chorio-scleral interface (CSI) and inner plexiform layer (IPL) (all p<0.05).
Higher Parkinson’s disease PRS was associated with thinner outer plexiform layer (p<0.001).
Worse baseline cognitive performance was associated with thinner retinal nerve fibre layer (RNFL) and photoreceptor (PR) segment, ganglion cell complex and thicker ganglion cell layer, IPL, INL and CSI
Worse future cognitive performance was associated with thicker IPL and CSI
Prediction of cognitive decline was significantly improved with the addition of PRS and retinal measurements.
The researchers concluded that retinal optical coherence tomography measurements are significantly associated with genetic risk of neurodegenerative disease and may serve as biomarkers predictive of future cognitive impairment.
Refernece:
Sekimitsu S, Shweikh Y, Shareef S, et alAssociation of retinal optical coherence tomography metrics and polygenic risk scores with cognitive function and future cognitive decline. British Journal of Ophthalmology Published Online First: 29 March 2023. doi: 10.1136/bjo-2022-322762