This study is embedded in the NORFACE project, which was founded in 2014 with the goal investigate retinal biomarkers of AD and analyze the relationship between retinal changes and different types of neurodegenerative disorders (Sánchez et al., 2018 ). Between February 2018 and March 2019, consecutive patients with a diagnosis of MCI (Petersen, 2004 (link)) evaluated at Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona and who underwent, within 12 months, a lumbar puncture (LP) for the quantification of CSF core biomarkers for AD and an ophthalmological exam/OCT scan, were enrolled in the present study. Participants were recruited from three different sources: (1) the Memory Clinic, an outpatient diagnostic unit for individuals with cognitive decline referred by physicians from the Catalan Public Health System (Boada et al., 2014 (link)), (2) Fundació ACE’s Open House Initiative (Rodríguez-Gómez et al., 2015 (link)), a social program that assesses for free the cognitive status of individuals from the community without the need for a physician’s referral, and (3) the BIOFACE project, a research study of novel biomarkers in early onset MCI (Esteban-De Antonio et al., 2021 (link)). Inclusion criteria were: consensus-based clinical diagnosis of MCI (Petersen, 2004 (link)), age ≥50 years old, availability of APOE ε4 status, ability to complete the full ophthalmological exam and OCT scan and CSF core biomarkers for AD performed within 12 months of the OCT-A scan.
Further, a group of participants with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) from the Fundació ACE Healthy Brain Initiative (FACEHBI) cohort (Rodriguez-Gomez et al., 2017 (link)) with no objective impairment on formal cognitive testing and absence of brain amyloid uptake in a Florbetaben-PET scan (SCD Aβ-) were included as the control group (n = 83) in additional analyses. These SCD participants underwent the same cognitive testing, ophthalmological exam and OCT scan protocol than the MCI participants from the NORFACE cohort included in the main analyses.
Further, a group of participants with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) from the Fundació ACE Healthy Brain Initiative (FACEHBI) cohort (Rodriguez-Gomez et al., 2017 (link)) with no objective impairment on formal cognitive testing and absence of brain amyloid uptake in a Florbetaben-PET scan (SCD Aβ-) were included as the control group (n = 83) in additional analyses. These SCD participants underwent the same cognitive testing, ophthalmological exam and OCT scan protocol than the MCI participants from the NORFACE cohort included in the main analyses.
Free full text: Click here
