Early signs of Alzheimer's are in the eye - New Scientist

Early signs of Alzheimer's are in the eye - New Scientist

Your eyes reveal a lot about you, and now that includes the health of your brain. A new way of counting dying eye cells could allow Alzheimer's disease to be diagnosed and treated in its early stages.

Many neurological diseases – including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's – involve the death of neurons in the brain, but these events are extremely hard to detect.

"It's difficult to diagnose these conditions before considerable damage has taken place, because the symptoms don't show up straight away," says Francesca Cordeiro at University College London.

However, this cell death also tends to extend to cells at the back of the eye, where it is much easier to detect abnormalities. So Cordeiro and her colleagues set about creating a way of detecting these eye neuron deaths.