Retinal optical coherence tomography intensity spatial correlation features as new biomarkers for confirmed Alzheimer’s disease

作者：Zi Jin, Xinmin Wang, Ying Lang, Yufeng Song, Huangxiong Zhan, Wuge Shama, Ying‐Ying Shen, Guihua Zeng, Faying Zhou, Hongjian Gao, Shuling Ye, Yan‐Jiang Wang, Fan Lü, Meixiao Shen · 发表于：Alzheimer s Research & Therapy · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s13195-025-01676-z · 被引用次数：13 · 研究领域：Optical Coherence Tomography Applications、Glaucoma and retinal disorders、Retinal Imaging and Analysis

BACKGROUND: The nature and severity of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathologies in the retina and brain correspond. However, retinal biomarkers need to be validated in clinical cohorts with confirmed AD biomarkers and optical coherence tomography (OCT). The main objective of this study was to investigate whether retinal metrics measured by OCT aid in the early screening and brain pathology monitoring for confirmed AD. METHODS: This was a case-control study. All participants underwent retinal OCT imaging, and neurological examinations, including amyloid-β (Aβ) positron emission tomography. Participants were subdivided into cognitively normal (CN), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and AD-derived dementia (ADD). Except retinal thickness, we developed the grey level co-occurrence matrix algorithm to extract retinal OCT intensity spatial correlation features (OCT-ISCF), including angular second matrix (ASM), correlation (COR), and homogeneity (HOM), one-way analysis of variance was used to compare the differences in retinal parameters among the groups, and to analyze the correlation with brain Aβ plaques and cognitive scores. The repeatability and robustness of OCT-ISCF were evaluated using experimental and simulation methods. RESULTS: This study enrolled 82 participants, subdivided into 20 CN, 22 MCI, and 40 ADD. Compared with the CN, the thickness of retinal nerve fiber layer and myoid and ellipsoid zone were significantly thinner (P < 0.05), and ASM, COR, and HOM in several retinal...