How to tell if a person is prone to memory loss and dementia? It turns out that for this you do not need to conduct complex intellectual tests or examine the brain - it is enough to look a person in the eye.
Recall that memory loss is one of the major cognitive impairments. They arise, among other things, due to damage to the vessels of the brain - their blockages or ruptures. But if large arteries are quite simple to examine (for example, using an MRI scan), then it is much more difficult to notice any changes in the state of small blood vessels.
However, there is still one loophole. Researchers believe that the eyes are not only a mirror of the soul, but also a mirror reflecting unhealthy changes and damage to the blood vessels in the brain. In other words, to understand whether they function normally, it is enough to examine the vessels of the retina (the inner lining of the eye), according to a press release from the American Academy of Neurology.
“The eyes are windows to the brain because the vasculature in the retina and in the brain is very similar,” says lead author Jennifer Deal of Johns Hopkins University (USA).
Moreover, the similarity of the small vessels of the brain and eyes is both anatomical and physiological.
In their new work, the team did find that older adults with moderate to severe retinal damage experienced greater memory impairment compared to people with healthy eye vessels.
The large-scale long-term study, which started in 1987, involved 12,317 people aged 45 to 64 years. At the very beginning, they all passed various tests for cognitive function, and then the same tests were repeated after 6 years and after 20 years.
Three years after the start of the study, the volunteers took pictures of the retina of the eyes. It turned out that in 11692 people with retinal vessels everything is in order, in 365 people there was an initial form of retinopathy (damage to the retina of the eyeball), and in other 256 people, retinopathy was already in a moderate or advanced form.
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Doctors explain that the main reason for the development of retinopathy is vascular disorders, which lead to a disorder of the blood supply to the retina. The experts looked for signs of microaneurysms, retinal hemorrhages, as well as “cotton spots” on the images - soft white spots that appear due to damage to nerve fibers and indicate a retinal infarction.
The researchers then analyzed and compared the results of the three cognitive tests with the data on the images. As a result, they found that the participants with the most severe form of retinopathy had the most significant memory impairments and slowed thought processes. The average test score for this group decreased by 1.22 points on a specially designed rating scale. Meanwhile, in people with healthy retinas, the deviation was 0.9 points.
Moreover, the authors of the work are sure that these processes are accelerated in people after 60 years.
However, to confirm the conclusions, new work will be required. For example, in this case, the pictures were taken with only one eye, although for a complete picture it is necessary to have a photo of the retina of both eyes.
“If our results are confirmed, differences in retinal health will help provide reasonable estimates of how much damage to small blood vessels in the brain contributes to cognitive decline,” says Jennifer Diehl.
The researchers call the new method "exciting" and are confident that it will be a simple and sure way to detect the risks of memory loss and the development of dementia. The study of the retina is non-invasive, low-cost, and is carried out in many clinics.
By the way, some scientists note that the analysis of the state of the retina can potentially be used in clinical trials of new drugs aimed at improving certain brain functions.
Meanwhile, patients who have already been diagnosed with retinopathy are advised by scientists to monitor their health more closely. This impairment may not only indicate a deterioration in cognitive functions, but also be a sign of the development of diabetes mellitus and hypertension.
An article on the results of the study will be published in the specialized medical journal Neurology.