Rutgers researchers have found that tiny blood vessel abnormalities in the white of the eye show up more often in older adults with mild cognitive impairment than in those with normal cognition. The discovery, reported by Rutgers Today, points to a possible early warning sign that doctors could one day check with a simple eye scan rather than a brain scan alone.
Doctoral candidate Gina Roslan and professor Joshua W. Miller led the work, pairing noninvasive eye imaging with MRI brain scans at Rutgers' Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research, according to Rutgers Today. For families watching an older relative for signs of memory trouble, the findings offer a glimpse of where dementia research is heading, even though the method is not yet something a doctor can order today.
Table of Contents
- What the Rutgers Researchers Found
- Why the Eye Can Reflect Brain Health
- Is This a Test You Can Get Now?
- How Caregivers and Older Adults Can Watch for Early Changes
- How to Join the Related Rutgers Study
What the Rutgers Researchers Found
Roslan and Miller compared two groups of older adults: those with normal cognition and those with mild cognitive impairment, a stage marked by noticeable memory or thinking changes that are not severe enough to be diagnosed as dementia. The group with mild cognitive impairment showed more eye microvascular abnormalities than the cognitively normal group, according to Rutgers Today. The same impaired-cognition group also showed more small-vessel disease on their MRI scans and lower brain volume in regions tied to neurodegeneration, the condition in which brain cells progressively lose function, compared with the cognitively normal participants.
Seeing both patterns together — vessel changes in the eye and vessel changes in the brain — is what makes the eye a plausible window onto what is happening deeper inside the skull. The research team also measured blood levels of homocysteine, an amino acid the body produces during normal metabolism. Participants with mild cognitive impairment had higher homocysteine levels than those with normal cognition, per Rutgers Today.
Why the Eye Can Reflect Brain Health
The white of the eye, called the sclera, contains tiny blood vessels that are visible without surgery or injections. Because these vessels develop from the same tissue systems as the brain's blood supply, researchers can examine them as a stand-in for vessel health that would otherwise require invasive testing to observe directly.
Miller's stated goal is to combine this eye-vessel imaging with blood biomarkers such as homocysteine to identify older adults at risk of cognitive decline before significant impairment develops, according to Rutgers Today. Catching risk earlier matters because interventions — managing blood pressure, diabetes, or vitamin deficiencies tied to homocysteine — tend to work better before damage accumulates.
Is This a Test You Can Get Now?
Not yet. Eye vessel imaging is currently used in clinical practice mainly to monitor conditions like diabetic retinopathy, a diabetes complication that damages the retina. Roslan notes that using it to detect cognitive decline is still under investigation and is not an established diagnostic tool, per Rutgers Today.
The project is funded through a pilot grant from the Rutgers Brain Health Institute's imaging center, and the findings have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal, according to Rutgers Today. That means the results are preliminary: useful for guiding further research, but not yet the basis for a doctor's office screening tool. Families should not expect a current eye exam, even a thorough one, to flag cognitive risk this way.
How Caregivers and Older Adults Can Watch for Early Changes
While this specific test is not available yet, the underlying message still applies at home: vascular health and brain health are closely linked. A few practical steps for caregivers and older adults:.
- Keep routine eye exams and report any vision changes to a doctor, since existing eye tests already catch some vascular conditions.
- Ask a primary care doctor about checking homocysteine levels if there is a family history of cognitive decline or cardiovascular disease.
- Track memory and thinking changes over time rather than relying on a single conversation; mild cognitive impairment is identified by a pattern, not one bad day.
- Manage blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, since vascular risk factors affect both eye and brain blood vessels.
How to Join the Related Rutgers Study
Rutgers is actively recruiting adults aged 60 and older, with or without cognitive impairment, for a related study called "Early Biomarkers of Cognitive Decline," according to Patch. Participation involves an eye video, a blood draw, and an MRI scan at the New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses, and participants receive a $50 gift card. This kind of study is how researchers build the evidence needed before any eye-based cognitive screening could move toward clinical use.
- Eligibility: age 60 or older, with or without existing cognitive impairment.
- What's involved: an eye video, a blood draw, and an MRI brain scan.
- Location: Rutgers' New Brunswick/Piscataway campuses.
- Compensation: a $50 gift card for participating.