Pupillary Light Reaction in Pre-Clinical Alzheimer's Disease vs. Normal Aging Controls (.pdf)

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by cognitive deficits and visual dysfunction. Neural biomarkers such as PET-Pib imaging and CSF ABeta levels are predictive of future development of AD but are expensive and cumbersome. There is increasing interest in using ocular biomarkers as a surrogate for disease activity in AD1. Several studies have shown that the pupillary light response (PLR) can differentiate AD patients from healthy controls. However, many of these studies assessed the PLR in established AD, and failed to control for systemic diseases and medications which affect the PLR. The PLR in preclinical AD remains poorly studied.