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Project

The eye as a window to the brain: tackling neurodegenerative disorders

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia, affecting 43,8 million people in 2016 and an estimated 130 million by 2050. The pathological changes of AD in the brain occur gradually over 20-30 years before the onset of symptoms and therapies are increasingly aimed at the preclinical stages of the disease. Yet current methods to identify individuals with presymptomatic AD are expensive, invasive and not scalable at a population level. Retinal imaging offers an ideal solution, as the retina is part of the central nervous system and it manifests many of the pathological processes that occur in the brain in AD.Our consortium brings together leading clinicians and scientists from Leuven and Melbourne with expertise in neuropathology, ophthalmology, imaging and artificial intelligence to validate multimodal retinal imaging biomarkers of AD. The PhD student will aim to establish whether retinal imaging, including hyperspectral retinal imaging, has clinical utility in screening for presymptomatic AD. In Leuven, they will image a well phenotyped cohort of middle- and older-aged adults at risk of AD. They will also conduct imaging and histopathological studies of AD-model mice to characterize the amyloid load/species that contribute to the hyperspectral imaging signature. In Melbourne they will have the opportunity to undertake an imaging study as part of the Healthy Brain Project and learn state-of-the-art image analysis methods. This project seeks to transform the clinical management of AD through improved detection of the disease in the preclinical stages in a non-invasive, rapid and cost-effective manner.
Date:1 Oct 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Alzheimer’s disease, Retina, Hyperspectral imaging
Disciplines:Ophthalmology, Neurological and neuromuscular diseases, Neuroimaging, Data mining