NeuroVision to participate in Alzheimer’s A4 clinical trial

NeuroVision Imaging will take part in a new substudy with investigators at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and the University of Southern California as they take part in a landmark anti-amyloid treatment in asymptomatic Alzheimer’s (A4) clinical trial.

The A4 study will test whether a new investigational treatment that may reduce beta-amyloid accumulation in the brain can also slow memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid is a protein that usually affects older people and forms amyloid plaque deposits in the brain. Researchers believe that these deposits are a key factor in the eventual development of Alzheimer’s-related memory loss.

"Our best chance of altering the disease may be to start treatment before people have symptoms," said Robert Rissman, PhD, the substudy’s principal investigator and associate professor of neurosciences at UCSD, in a statement.

With the work of NeuroVision’s retinal imaging technology, the clinical trial will be able to characterize retinal amyloid imaging findings in subjects with preclinical Alzheimer’s prior to administration of experimental treatment received as part of the primary A4 study protocol. Researchers will also look into longitudinal changes in retinal amyloid imaging and whether it correlates with brain amyloid and cognitive change.

"If successful, this technique could one day be used in the clinic to identify at-risk patients," said Michael Rafii, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology at USC and associate professor of neurosciences at UCSD, in a release. "Dr. Rissman and I recently identified a strong neuropathological signal using NeuroVision's retinal imaging system in adults with Down Syndrome, a group of individuals who are at increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease."

The main A4 study is a public-private partnership that has about 70 study sites in several countries. Researchers will recruit 100 subjects into the substudy and have them imaged annually over three years.