Scientists Are Developing Eye Scanners To Detect Early Signs Of Alzheimer’s And Other Major Conditions
Simple eye scans could revolutionize early disease detection. Scientists are working on developing eye-scanning technology to detect early signs of major conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, sickle cell disease, and even Alzheimer’s disease.
A team of researchers from Indiana University is at the forefront of this research. The project is being led by Stephen A. Burns, a professor at the IU School of Optometry, as part of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Venture Program Oculomics Initiative.
Oculomics is an up-and-coming field that involves studying the eye to observe diseases affecting the entire body.
“This research is about using the eye as a window on health. We want to give health care providers the clearest view they can hope to get into the body, non-invasively,” said Burns.
The project combines advanced optics with artificial intelligence (AI) to result in a state-of-the-art non-invasive diagnostic tool. It builds upon Burns’ previous work in adaptive optics and eye observation.
Since the early 2000s, he and his colleagues have been developing ophthalmoscopes to detect diseases through the eye.
The technology was originally created by astronomers to eliminate distortions in telescopes caused by the Earth’s atmosphere and eye optics, allowing for extremely detailed views.
The ophthalmoscope in Burns’ laboratory is capable of observing the human eye at a high resolution of two microns, which is small enough to see the movement of red blood cells in the eye’s blood vessels in real time.
The technology’s level of detail has already helped the researchers identify biomarkers for diabetes and hypertension in the blood vessels.
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Researchers from Northwestern University and Mount Sinai have contributed to the work as well. The creation of such a powerful tool requires the efforts of multiple research teams.
They utilized similar technology to observe various parts of the eye, including blood vessels and photoreceptors.
They were able to detect the crescent-shaped cells found in sickle cell anemia and improve the observation of photoreceptors.
By combining these different technologies with AI, the researchers hope to create a single device that can also detect early signs of major diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
AI is important for interpreting and analyzing the data collected by the ophthalmoscopes. It can aid in the efficiency and accuracy of image processing, possibly speeding up diagnosis.
This means patients can receive treatment sooner and have more positive health outcomes.
“There’s growing evidence of a strong retinal vascular component to Alzheimer’s disease,” said Burns.
“You can currently see the signs with PET scans, which require large, multi-million dollar instruments. If we can see the same signs with an eye scan, it’s a lot less invasive and a lot less costly.”
In the third and final year of the project, the device will be tested on clinical volunteers. If it’s successful, it could transform early disease detection as we know it.
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