Retinal Vascular and Structural Changes in the Murine Alzheimer's APPNL-F/NL-F Model from 6 to 20 Months.
Biomolecules
; 14(7)2024 Jul 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39062542
ABSTRACT
Alzheimer's disease (AD) may manifest retinal changes preceding brain pathology. A transversal case-control study utilized spectral-domain OCT angiography (SD-OCTA) and Angio-Tool software 0.6a to assess retinal vascular structures and OCT for inner and outer retina thickness in the APPNL-F/NL-F AD model at 6, 9, 12, 15, 17, and 20 months old. Comparisons to age-matched wild type (WT) were performed. The analysis focused on the three vascular plexuses using AngiooTool and on retinal thickness, which was represented with the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) sectors. Compared to WT, the APPNL-F/NL-F group exhibited both vascular and structural changes as early as 6 months persisting and evolving at 15, 17, and 20 months. Significant vascular alterations, principally in the superficial vascular complex (SVC), were observed. There was a significant decrease in the vessel area and the total vessel length in SVC, intermediate, and deep capillary plexus. The inner retina in the APPNL-F/NL-F group predominantly decreased in thickness while the outer retina showed increased thickness in most analyzed time points compared to the control group. There are early vascular and structural retinal changes that precede the cognitive changes, which appear at later stages. Therefore, the natural history of the APPNL-F/NL-F model may be more similar to human AD than other transgenic models.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Retinal Vessels
/
Tomography, Optical Coherence
/
Disease Models, Animal
/
Alzheimer Disease
Limits:
Animals
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
En
Journal:
Biomolecules
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Spain