Introduction: Development of novel diagnostic tools is a top research priority in vascular dementia. A major obstacle is the lack of a simple, non-invasive method to visualize cerebral arteriolar walls in vivo. Retinal arterioles offer a window into the cerebral circulation.
Methods: Intensity-based retinal arteriolar visualization in optical coherence tomography (I-bRAVO) was applied to evaluate mean wall thickness (MWT) and wall-to-lumen ratio (WLR) in 250 subjects with sporadic and genetic cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD), non-vascular neurodegenerative diseases (NVND), and healthy controls (HC) in association with imaging and cognitive markers.
Results: MWT and WLR were higher in CSVD, associated with severity of vascular white matter lesions, and correlated with magnetic resonance imaging-based intracranial arteriolosclerosis score. WLR correlated with gray and white matter volume and differentiated asymptomatic sporadic CSVD from HC (area under the curve = 0.82).
Discussion: I-bRAVO is a rapid, non-invasive tool. MWT and WLR were associated with imaging markers of CSVD and could contribute to early identification of sporadic CSVD.
Keywords: cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy; cerebral small vessel disease; retinal vessels; vascular dementia; white matter disease.
© 2022 The Authors. Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of Alzheimer's Association.