ArticleAlzheimer's research & therapy2023
Retinal mid-peripheral capillary free zones are enlarged in cognitively unimpaired older adults at high risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Article in Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Quantitative ophthalmic posterior segment optical coherence tomography angiography and neurologic conditions: a review.Frontiers in neurologyPooled it
- Association and Multimodal Model of Retinal Mid-Peripheral Capillary Free Zones with Structural and Functional Parameters in Diabetic Patients Without Clinical Retinopathy.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Article
- Low-grade peripheral inflammation accelerates retinal amyloid pathology and dysfunction in an Alzheimer's disease mouse model.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2026Article
- Cognition-Eye-Brain Connection in Alzheimer's Disease Spectrum Revealed by Multimodal Imaging.Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI · 2025Article
- Compensatory retinal blood flow enhancement in cognitively normal ApoE ε4 carriers.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cerebral Amyloid Deposition WithHuman brain mapping · 2025Article
- Retinal Mid-Peripheral Capillary Free Zones Are Enlarged in Diabetic Patients With No Evidence of Clinical Retinopathy.Translational vision science & technology · 2025Article
- Deep learning segmentation of periarterial and perivenous capillary-free zones in optical coherence tomography angiography.Journal of biomedical optics · 2025Article
- Association and multimodal model of retinal and blood-based biomarkers for detection of preclinical Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2025Article
- Use of VESsel GENeration with Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography and Fluorescein Angiography for Detection and Quantification of Vascular Changes in Mild and Moderate Diabetic Retinopathy.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Alzheimer's disease pathophysiology in the Retina.Progress in retinal and eye research · 2024Review
- Quantifying Putative Retinal Gliosis in Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 10 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCompared to standard neuro-diagnostic techniques, retinal biomarkers provide a probable low-cost and non-invasive alternative for early Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk screening. We have previously quantified the periarteriole and perivenule capillary free zones (mid-peripheral CFZs) in cognitively unimpaired (CU) young and older adults as novel metrics of retinal tissue oxygenation. There is a breakdown of the inner retinal blood barrier, pericyte loss, and capillary non-perfusion or dropout in AD leading to potential enlargement of the mid-peripheral CFZs. We hypothesized the mid-peripheral CFZs will be enlarged in CU older adults at high risk for AD compared to low-risk individuals.
methods20 × 20° optical coherence tomography angiography images consisting of 512 b-scans, 512 A-scans per b-scan, 12-µm spacing between b-scans, and 5 frames averaged per each b-scan location of the central fovea and of paired major arterioles and venules with their surrounding capillaries inferior to the fovea of 57 eyes of 37 CU low-risk (mean age: 66 years) and 50 eyes of 38 CU high-risk older adults (mean age: 64 years; p = 0.24) were involved in this study. High-risk participants were defined as having at least one APOE e4 allele and a positive first-degree family history of AD while low-risk participants had neither of the two criteria. All participants had Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores ≥ 26. The mid-peripheral CFZs were computed in MATLAB and compared between the two groups.
resultsThe periarteriole CFZ of the high-risk group (75.8 ± 9.19 µm) was significantly larger than that of the low-risk group (71.3 ± 7.07 µm), p = 0.005, Cohen's d = 0.55. The perivenule CFZ of the high-risk group (60.4 ± 8.55 µm) was also significantly larger than that of the low-risk group (57.3 ± 6.40 µm), p = 0.034, Cohen's d = 0.42. There were no significant differences in foveal avascular zone (FAZ) size, FAZ effective diameter, and vessel density between the two groups, all p > 0.05.
conclusionsOur results show larger mid-peripheral CFZs in CU older adults at high risk for AD, with the potential for the periarteriole CFZ to serve as a novel retinal vascular biomarker for early AD risk detection.
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