Relationship of retinal capillary plexus and ganglion cell complex with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

Objective: To investigate relationship of the retinal capillary plexus (RCP) and ganglion cell complex (GCC) with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia in a community-based study1.

Methods: This cross-sectional study incorporated the participants of the Jidong Eye Cohort Study. Optical coherence tomography angiography was performed to obtain RCP vessel density and GCC thickness with detailed segments. The Mini-mental State Examination and Montreal Cognitive Assessment were used to assess cognitive status by professional neuropsychologists. Participants were thus divided into three groups: normal, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia. Multivariable analysis was used to measure relationship of ocular parameters with cognitive impairment.

Results: Of the 2678 participants, the mean age was 44.1 ± 11.7 years. MCI and dementia occurred in 197 (7.4%) and 80 (3%) participants, respectively. Compared to the normal group, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) with the 95% confidence interval was 0.76 (0.65-0.90) for the correlation of lower deep RCP with MCI. We found the following items significantly associated with dementia compared with the normal group: a superficial (OR, 0.68 [0.54-0.86]) and deep (OR, 0.75 [0.57-0.99]) RCP, as well as the GCC (OR, 0.68 [0.54-0.85]). Compared to the MCI group, those with dementia had decreased GCC (OR, 0.75 [0.58-0.97]).

Conclusions: Decreased deep RCP density was associated with MCI. Decreased superficial and deep RCP and the thin GCC were correlated with dementia. These implied that the retinal microvasculature may develop into a promising non-invasive imaging marker to predict severity of cognitive impairment.