OCT- Optical Coherence Tomography

A Johns Hopkins study has revealed that a five-minute eye exam might prove to be an inexpensive and effective way to gauge and track the debilitating neurological disease multiple sclerosis.

The new method can potentially complement costly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect brain shrinkage - a characteristic of the disease’s progression

The new study is based on a group of 40 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, who used a process called optical coherence tomography (OCT) to scan the layers of nerve fibers of the retina in the back of the eye, which become the optic nerve.

OCT, which uses a desktop machine similar to a slit-lamp, is simple and painless. The retinal nerve fiber layer is the one part of the brain where nerve cells are not covered with the fat and protein sheathing called myelin, making this assessment specific for nerve damage as opposed to brain MRI changes, which reflect an array of different types of tissue processes in the brain.

http://news.sawf.org/Health/43743.aspx