Eye test could reveal signs of Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's disease may be identified via a non-invasive laser scan of the lens of the eye, a conference in Spain has heard.

This month's International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Madrid heard that the procedure, which checks for signs of a protein found in the brain tissue of those suffering from the disease, had worked in a trial in mice, accurately identifying those with the condition.

Building on their discovery that people with Alzheimer's have b-amyloid deposits that appear as unusual cataracts in the lens of the eye, Lee Goldstein and colleagues of Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston used a brief pulse of infrared light and analysed how it bounced back in the eyes of affected and unaffected mice.