Pupil-fMRI correlation mapping of awake transgenic 5xFAD mice of Alzheimer’s Disease

This study obtained visually stimulated high-resolution fMRI and real-time pupil dynamic signals in awake normal and AD mice. By analyzing the trial-specific pupillary responses to light (PRL), we identified unique temporal dynamic features in AD mice. By performing the pupil-fMRI event-related analysis, we detected specific subcortical functional nuclei in AD mice, showing strong correlations to the pupil dilation recovery features and the variability across different stimulation events. These results present novel function-behavioral linkage based on the pupillary responses to visual stimulation in AD mice, revealing an intriguing non-invasive and quantitative biomarker of the neurodegenerative progress of AD brains.