Approved Research

Early screening research for senile systemic disease based on eye-brain images

Lay summary

Aims: This project aims to enable the early diagnosis and screening of age-related diseases using multi-model imaging.

Scientific rationale: Systemic diseases such as AD, PD are increasingly harmful cause of the health in the elderly, the majority of which lacks effective therapies. Detected patients and take interventions early can effectively delay disease progression and improve patients' quality of life. Therefore, early diagnosis and screening is very crucial. The retina is a part of the central nervous system that develops from the developing diencephalon, and shares many of its structural and functional characteristics with the brain. Changes in retinal morphology might be associated with AD, PD. Furthermore, retinal vascular (eg, vessel caliber and retinopathy signs) is a structural marker of microvascular changes in the fundus and is strongly associated with hypertension, diabetes, and other systemic vascular diseases.

Project duration: 36 months.

Public health impact: This project aims at millions of population who are at the risk of aging-diseases. To build an effective and scalable screening model and develop corresponding diagnostic and monitoring algorithms and software to achieve non-invasive risk assessment, early diagnosis and screening of major diseases using ophthalmic and cerebral image data.