Publication Date:
1994-11-11
Description:
Currently Alzheimer's disease, which affects more than 20 million people worldwide, can only be definitely diagnosed by histological examination of brain tissue obtained at autopsy or biopsy. There is a great need for an early, noninvasive, sensitive, and easily administered diagnostic test of Alzheimer's disease. Here it is reported that patients diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease by standard clinical criteria exhibited a marked hypersensitivity in their pupil dilation response to a cholinergic antagonist, tropicamide, placed in their eyes. It was possible to distinguish 18 of 19 individuals (95%) either clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or classified as suspect Alzheimer's individuals by neuropsychological screening from 30 of 32 normal elderly controls (94%).〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Scinto, L F -- Daffner, K R -- Dressler, D -- Ransil, B I -- Rentz, D -- Weintraub, S -- Mesulam, M -- Potter, H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1994 Nov 11;266(5187):1051-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratory of Eye Movements and Higher Cortical Functions, Brigham and Women's Hospital, MA 02115.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7973660" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Aged
;
Alzheimer Disease/*diagnosis/physiopathology
;
Dementia/physiopathology
;
Female
;
Humans
;
Male
;
Neuropsychological Tests
;
Pupil/*drug effects
;
Reproducibility of Results
;
Sensitivity and Specificity
;
*Tropicamide/pharmacology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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