Non-invasive early test for Alzheimer's

And, heeeee's back!

Lee Goldstein, an neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, may have discovered a non-invasive test for Alzheimer's disease, allowing treatment to begin before the onset of brain damage.

In 2003, Goldstein and his colleagues discovered that the exact same malformed amyloid beta proteins that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease are also found in the eye's lens and its surrounding fluid. Now, they have created two noninvasive tests that scan the eye for these telltale molecules to potentially detect the disease in its earliest stages.

Both tests safely and painlessly shine a low-power near-infrared laser into the eye. One test scans for clumps of the amyloid beta protein in part of the lens where they collect to form cataracts. In the other test, special eye drops that bind only to the molecules are used. They glow when hit by the laser. While the eye-drop test provides more detailed molecular information about the proteins, the other test yields more biophysical data, such as the number and size of the particles.