Identifying the bioimaging features of Alzheimer’s disease based on pupillary light response-driven brain-wide fMRI in awake mice

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

-driven differential analysis reveals altered visual signal processing and reduced thalamocortical activation in AD mice in comparison with wild-type (WT) control mice. In contrast, the post-illumination pupil dilation recovery-based fMRI highlights multiple brain areas associated with AD brain degeneration, including the cingulate cortex, hippocampus, septal area of the basal forebrain, medial raphe nucleus, and pontine reticular nuclei (PRN). Additionally, the brain-wide functional connectivity analysis highlights the most significant changes in PRN of AD mice, which serves as the major subcortical relay nuclei underlying oculomotor function. This work integrates non-invasive pupil-fMRI measurements in preclinical models to identify pupillary biomarkers based on brain-wide functional changes, including neuromodulatory dysfunction coupled with AD brain degeneration.