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Characterization of the retinal changes of the 3×Tg-AD mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

Publication . Ferreira, Hugo; Martins, João; Nunes, Ana; Moreira, Paula I.; Castelo-Branco, Miguel; Ambrósio, António F.; Serranho, Pedro; Bernardes, Rui

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder whose diagnosis remains a notable challenge. The literature suggests that cerebral changes precede AD symptoms by over two decades, implying a significantly advanced stage of AD by the time it is usually diagnosed. In the study herein, texture analysis was applied to computed optical coherence tomography ocular fundus images to identify differences between a group of the transgenic mouse model of the Alzheimer’s disease (3×Tg-AD) and a group of wild-type mice, at the ages of one and two-months-old. A substantial difference between groups was found at both time-points across all neuroretina’s layers. Here, the inner nuclear layer stands out both in the level of statistically significant differences and on the extension of these differences which span through the imaged area. Also, the progression of AD is suggested to be spotted by texture analysis as demonstrated by the significant difference found in the inner plexiform and the outer nuclear layers from the age of one to the age of two-months-old. These findings demonstrate the potential of the use of the retina and texture analysis to the diagnosis of AD and monitor AD progression. Besides, the differences between groups found in this study suggest that the 3×Tg-AD model may be inappropriate to study early changes associated with the AD and other animal models should be tested following the same path and rationale. Moreover, these results also suggest that the human genes present in these transgenic mice may have an impact on the neurodevelopment of offspring which would justify the significant changes found at the age of one-month-old.

2020Journal article

Open access

On the use of quasi-equidistant source points over the sphere surface for the method of fundamental solutions

Publication . Araújo, António; Serranho, Pedro

The method of fundamental solutions is broadly used in science and engineering to numerically solve the direct time-harmonic scattering problem. In 2D the choice of source points is usually made by considering an inner pseudo-boundary over which equidistant source points are placed. In 3D, however, this problem is much more challenging, since, in general, equidistant points over a closed surface do not exist. In this paper we discuss a method to obtain a quasi-equidistant point distribution over the unit sphere surface, giving rise to a Delaunay triangulation that might also be used for other boundary element methods. We give theoretical estimates for the expected distance between points and the expect area of each triangle. We illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method in terms of the comparison with the expected values for distance and area. We also provide numerical evidence that this point distribution leads to a good conditioning of the linear system associated with the direct scattering problem, being therefore an adequated choice of source points for the method of fundamental solutions.

2019Journal article

Open access