Multimodal Coherent Imaging of Retinal Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s Disease in a Mouse Model

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 7912
• Main Authors: Song, Ge, Steelman, Zachary A., Finkelstein, Stella, Yang, Ziyun, Martin, Ludovic, Chu, Kengyeh K., Farsiu, Sina, Arshavsky, Vadim Y., Wax, Adam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 13.05.2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/166/985; 639/624/1107/510; Alzheimer Disease - pathology; Alzheimer's disease; Animals; Biomarkers; Biopsy; Disease Models, Animal; Epithelium; Fluorescent Antibody Technique; Heterogeneity; Humanities and Social Sciences; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Interferometry; Light scattering; Mice; Mice, Transgenic; multidisciplinary; Neurodegenerative diseases; Retina; Retina - diagnostic imaging; Retina - metabolism; Retina - pathology; Retinal pigment epithelium; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Statistical analysis; Tomography, Optical Coherence - methods
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-64827-2

We acquired depth-resolved light scattering measurements from the retinas of triple transgenic Alzheimer’s Disease (3xTg-AD) mice and wild type (WT) age-matched controls using co-registered angle-resolved low-coherence interferometry (a/LCI) and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Angle-resolved light scattering measurements were acquired from the nerve fiber layer, outer plexiform layer, and retinal pigmented epithelium using image guidance and segmented thicknesses provided by co-registered OCT B-scans. Analysis of the OCT images showed a statistically significant thinning of the nerve fiber layer in AD mouse retinas compared to WT controls. The a/LCI scattering measurements provided complementary information that distinguishes AD mice by quantitatively characterizing tissue heterogeneity. The AD mouse retinas demonstrated higher mean and variance in nerve fiber layer light scattering intensity compared to WT controls. Further, the difference in tissue heterogeneity was observed through short-range spatial correlations that show greater slopes at all layers of interest for AD mouse retinas compared to WT controls. A greater slope indicates a faster loss of spatial correlation, suggesting a loss of tissue self-similarity characteristic of heterogeneity consistent with AD pathology. Use of this combined modality introduces unique tissue texture characterization to complement development of future AD biomarker analysis.