Can (Optical Coherence Tomography) Pictures of the Retina Detect Alzheimer's Disease at Its Earliest Stages?
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT06023446. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Illuminating Glial Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease With Optical Coherence Tomography
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Years before someone experiences the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, a compound called amyloid beta (Aβ) builds up in the brain. Excess Aβ - directly or indirectly - causes many of the symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia. However, recent studies of the FDA-approved drugs lecanemab (Leqembi®) and aducanumab (Aduhelm®) indicate that removing Aβ from the brain doesn't stop Alzheimer's. Clearly, there are other problems that need to be fixed. The investigators are interested in the cause of Aβ buildup. Non-neuronal support cells, called glia, keep neurons healthy by regulating water and nutrient levels for the neurons. They also help clear Aβ away from neurons. Maybe Aβ builds up when glia are unhealthy. Glia are very hard to study in the brain. Luckily, the light-sensing part of the eye - the retina - is an extension of the brain. The investigators study glia in the retina to learn about glia in the brain. To study retinal glia, the investigators take pictures of the retina with optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT is safe, painless, and is used in many eye clinics to look at the structure of the retina. When the investigators take OCT pictures under a bright light, and compare those to OCT pictures collected in darkness, it gives the investigators information about glial function. In a study published in 2020 ("Optical coherence tomography reveals light-dependent retinal responses in Alzheimer's disease") the investigators showed that this functional OCT measurement was different in people with Alzheimer's dementia, compared to age-matched healthy adults. The goal of this observational study is to compare people at a pre-dementia stage of Alzheimer's disease to people who do not have any signs at all of Alzheimer's disease. By "pre-dementia stage", the investigators mean people who are either cognitively normal, or have mild cognitive impairment, but have had a medical test that shows the chemical beginnings of Alzheimer's disease. Members of the comparison group will also be cognitively normal, or have mild cognitive impairment, but had a medical test that shows utterly no signs of Alzheimer's disease. The main question this study, is whether functional OCT can tell these two groups apart. If so, that would: * Help build the case for glial health being important in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's, which in turn could lead to new treatment strategies, and * Suggest that functional OCT might be used as an early (pre-dementia) screening test for Alzheimer's disease Participants will: * undergo a brief eye exam (the investigators will not dilate pupils for this study) * undergo a paper-and-pencil cognitive test (to help verify "normal" or "mild cognitive impairment" status) * take brief one-page survey to collect demographic information (like age) * permit limited access to pre-existing medical or research records (to verify the presence/absence of the chemical beginnings of Alzheimer's disease) * take several OCT pictures of both eyes, in light and after 2 minutes of darkness (several rounds of images are taken) The expectation is that all study procedures will fit within 2 hours of one day.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT06023446
- Recruitment status
- Enrolling by invitation
- Study type
- Observational
- Phase
- Not listed
- Enrollment
- 100 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 50 Years to 89 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Sep 28, 2023
- Primary completion
- Feb 27, 2028
- Completion
- Feb 27, 2028
- Last update posted
- Dec 4, 2025
2023 – 2028
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of California - Davis | Sacramento | California | 95816 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT06023446, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Dec 4, 2025 · Synced Sep 3, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT06023446 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.