Retinal neurodegeneration and visual dysfunctions have been reported in a majority of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients, and, in light of the quest for novel biomarkers for these neurodegenerative proteinopathies, the retina has been receiving increasing attention as an organ for diagnosing, monitoring, and understanding disease. Thinning of retinal layers, abnormalities in vasculature, and protein deposition can be imaged at unprecedented resolution, which offers a unique systems biology view on the cellular and molecular changes underlying these pathologies. It makes the retina not only a promising target for biomarker development, but it also suggests that novel fundamental insights into the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease can be obtained by studying the retina–brain axis.

大多数阿尔茨海默病和帕金森病患者都报告了视网膜神经变性和视觉功能障碍，鉴于对这些神经退行性蛋白病的新生物标志物的探索，视网膜作为诊断、监测和了解疾病的器官越来越受到关注. 可以以前所未有的分辨率对视网膜层变薄、脉管系统异常和蛋白质沉积进行成像，这为这些病理背后的细胞和分子变化提供了独特的系统生物学观点。它不仅使视网膜成为生物标志物开发的有希望的目标，而且还表明可以通过研究视网膜-脑轴获得对阿尔茨海默病和帕金森病病理生理学的新的基本见解。