URI neuroscientist receives $10.3 million grant for research on retinal scanning to detect early-stage Alzheimer’s
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| Jessica Alber, standing, (URI photo by Michael Salerno) |
Alber has received a five-year, $10.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to support her work using retinal imaging to screen for early changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
The
project, “Longitudinal validation of retinal biomarkers against cerebral
imaging in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,” could help provide a low-cost,
minimally invasive screening technique to detect Alzheimer’s disease before
symptoms appear.
While there are no current treatments that can slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, new developments in drug and lifestyle therapies indicate the potential for success with earlier intervention.
Yet one of the primary challenges in treating the disease has been that it is difficult to diagnose.
While clinicians can use positron emission tomography scanning or lumbar puncture to detect the build-up of amyloid and tau proteins, or “plaques and tangles,” that are hallmarks of the disease, the procedures are both invasive and expensive.
Using retinal imaging
as a “window to the brain,” Alber and collaborators seek to develop a more
affordable and accessible screening tool that could potentially be part of a
routine eye exam.
“In the near future, screening for risk in the general population will become increasingly important in order to treat people before they are experiencing the devastating
loss in quality of life and cognitive function that
affects them and their families,” said Alber. “The retina allows us to look at
what might be changing in the brain in a cost-effective and minimally invasive
way to identify people who are at high risk but not sick yet.”
The NIH grant builds upon Alber’s work with the Atlas
of Retinal Imaging in Alzheimer’s Study (ARIAS). Led by URI Vice President for
Research and Economic Development Peter Snyder, and Dr. Stuart Sinoff, of
Florida-based BayCare Health System, the ARIAS study was launched in 2020 to
create a reference database of structural, anatomic, and functional imaging of
the retina to develop markers of Alzheimer’s disease risk and progression.
In addition to validating the retinal imaging biomarkers identified during the ARIAS study, Alber’s study, called ARIAS 2, will explore the potential for using Alzheimer’s disease blood plasma biomarkers in tandem with retinal imaging for greater sensitivity in detecting early-stage disease.
“We don’t know yet if blood biomarkers can be used to
identify preclinical disease, but we have seen some exciting developments in
this area,” said Alber.
The ARIAS 2 study team is led by Alber. Other partners
are Snyder, URI co-investigator; clinical site leads at Butler Hospital Memory
and Aging Program, Washington University at St. Louis School of Medicine, and
University of North Texas Health Sciences Center at Fort Worth; core leads at
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and all three clinical
research sites; and collaborators at Heidelberg Engineering and University of
Alabama at Birmingham.
Founded in 2013, the George & Anne Ryan Institute
for Neuroscience at URI is focused on investigating under-explored factors in
Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.
ARIAS 2 Study Team
- Jessica Alber, Ph.D., Principal Investigator; Data
Management and Administrative Core Lead; Retinal Imaging Core Lead, George
& Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rhode Island.
- Peter J. Snyder, Ph.D., Co-Investigator, University
of Rhode Island.
- Gregory Van Stavern, M.D., Co-Investigator,
Site Principal Investigator, Washington University at St. Louis.
- Cyrus Raji, M.D., Co-Investigator; Brain Imaging
Core Lead, Washington University at St. Louis.
- Tammie Benzinger, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Investigator,
Washington University at St. Louis.
- Beau Ances, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Investigator, Washington
University at St. Louis.
- Abraham Snyder, M.D., Ph.D., Co-Investigator,
Washington University at St. Loui.
- Shang-Kwei Song, Ph.D., Co-Investigator, Washington
University at St. Louis.
- Louisa Thompson, Ph.D., Co-Investigator; Cognitive
Core Lead, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Butler Hospital.
- Meghan Riddle, M.D., Co-Investigator; Site
Principal Investigator, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University,
Butler Hospital.
- Fenghai Duan, Ph.D., Biostatistics Core Lead, Brown
University.
- Melissa Petersen, Ph.D., Co-Investigator; Blood
Biomarker Core Lead, University of North Texas Health Sciences Center at Fort
Worth.
- Sima Mozdbar, O.D., M.P.H., Co-Investigator, Site
Principal Investigator, University of North Texas Health Sciences Center at
Fort Worth.
- Stephanie Large, N.P., Co-Investigator, University
of North Texas Health Sciences Center at Fort Worth.
- Brian Fernandez, M.D., Consultant, Heidelberg
Engineering.
- Edmund Arthur, O.D., Ph.D., Consultant, University
of Alabama at Birmingham.