IPACBIS - Identifying Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease in the community using a panel of biomarkers among individuals with Subjective Memory Complaints

The IPACBIS study (Identifying Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease in the community using a panel of biomarkers among individuals with Subjective Memory Complaints) aims to verify the reliability of detecting with a simple photograph of the retina the probability of developing Alzheimer's disease in cognitively healthy people. The research project has been funded by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions post-doctoral grant, within the framework of the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Initiative, awarded to Dr. Marta Marquié.

Changes related to Alzheimer's can be detected in the brain up to 20 years before some kind of symptom starts. Even so, most tests used to predict the likelihood of risk of the disease in healthy people tend to be expensive and, as a rule, highly invasive.

In contrast, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), which is the focus of this research, is an inexpensive, fast and painless test that involves taking a photograph of the fundus of the eye. This test, which was originally used in the field of ophthalmology to diagnose diseases of the eye, has also begun to be used in recent years to diagnose some neurodegenerative diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson's disease. In this sense, recent studies have shown that people with Alzheimer's disease experience a thinning of the retina, pointing to a potential use of OCT as a biomarker of Alzheimer's.

The IPACBIS study analyzes the bulk of the retina of 200 cognitively healthy people who have subjective memory complaints to find out if OCT could serve as a predictive method. IPACBIS will complete the data of the FACEHBI project (Fundació ACE Healthy Brain Initiative), promoted by Fundació ACE, adding OCT to the tests of the volunteers who participate.
 

Worst visual health parameters

In fact, the IPACBIS study is also closely related to another study promoted by Fundació ACE, NORFACE (Neuro-ophtalmology Research at Fundació ACE). As a result of this study, the experts of the Research Unit have shown that people with dementia present worse visual health parameters than those with a lower degree of cognitive impairment. This is indicated in an article published by the foundation's specialists in 2019 in the journal Nature- Scientific Reports.

In this article, visual health markers and retinal image findings have been analyzed by Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) in a sample of almost 1,800 people with Subjective Cognitive Impairment, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia, assessed at Fundació ACE's Diagnostic Unit between 2016 and 2018.