Retinal Imaging Techniques for Neurodegenerative Diseases: Parkinson's Disease and Beyond

Abstract

Given that the retina shares embryonic origin with the central nervous system, past evidence has attempted to prove parallel pathology of neurovegetative diseases in the retina. Retinal imaging techniques provide in vivo structural and functional data with advantages of high resolution and low cost in a noninvasive way. In recent literature, the retina presents significant alterations related to Parkinson's disease (PD) and other neurodegenerative diseases through multimodal retinal images due to its neural accessibility. However, current findings remain fragmented and inconsistent causing the existing reviews limited in a certain modality or incomplete without mention of interdisciplinary integration. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review and synthesize the application of retinal imaging techniques in PD and other neurodegenerative diseases. We begin with the connections between the retina and the brain and the main retinal imaging modalities. We then summarize the retinal changes in patients with PD and other neurodegenerative diseases during the past decade. Additionally, we discuss the application of artificial intelligence in PD prediction and retinal probe. By integrating histopathological insights with advanced imaging analytics, we highlight retinal changes as biomarkers for neurodegeneration, which accelerate their clinical translation for early diagnosis and monitoring of PD in the future. and other neurodegenerative diseases.