Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 11, 2026
Using Retinal Imaging to Study Dementia
Published on: November 6, 2017
Characterizing differences in retinal and choroidal microvasculature and structure in individuals with Huntington's
Suzanna Joseph1,2, Cason B Robbins1,2, Alice Haystead2
1Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, United States of America.
Objective:
To characterize retinal and choroidal microvascular and structural changes in patients who are gene positive for mutant huntingtin protein (mHtt) with symptoms of Huntington's Disease (HD).
Methods:
This study is a cross-sectional comparison of patients who are gene positive for mHtt and exhibit symptoms of HD, either motor manifest or prodromal (HD group), and cognitively normal individuals without a family history of HD (control group). HD patients were diagnosed by Duke movement disorder neurologists based on the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS). Fovea and optic nerve centered OCT and OCTA images were captured using Zeiss Cirrus HD-5000 with AngioPlex. Outcome metrics included central subfield thickness (CST), peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) thickness, ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL) thickness, and choroidal vascularity index (CVI) on OCT, and foveal avascular zone (FAZ) area, vessel density (VD), perfusion density (PD), capillary perfusion density (CPD), and capillary flux index (CFI) on OCTA. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to account for inter-eye correlation.
Results:
Forty-four eyes of 23 patients in the HD group and 77 eyes of 39 patients in the control group were analyzed. Average GCIPL thickness and FAZ area were decreased in the HD group compared to controls (p = 0.001, p < 0.001). No other imaging metrics were significantly different between groups.
Conclusions:
Patients in the HD group had decreased GCIPL thickness and smaller FAZ area, highlighting the potential use of retinal biomarkers in detecting neurodegenerative changes in HD.
