The loss of cells in the retina might predict a common type of dementia years before behavioural changes set in.

A team led by Li Gan and Ari Green at the University of California, San Francisco, imaged the retinas of 12 people with mutations that cause frontotemporal dementia, a common cause of dementia in people under 60 years old. Even though most of the subjects had yet to develop symptoms, their retinas tended to be thinner than those of 24 people without the mutations. Mice lacking the same gene also lost retinal neurons as they aged.

Retinal deterioration could be one of the earliest observable signs of frontotemporal dementia, the team says, and a useful biomarker in trials of drugs that slow the disease.

J. Exp. Med. http://doi.org/vdp (2014)