Method and apparatus for early diagnosis of Alzheimer's using non-invasive eye tomography by Teraherts

• US 20100110381A1
• Filed: 01/04/2010
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ali Dabiri, Manouchehr Motamedi
• Original Assignee: Ali Dabiri, Manouchehr Motamedi
• Inventors: Motamedi, Manouchehr, Dabiri, Ali
• Granted Patent: US 8,210,682 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 351/221
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/102 for optical coherence tomography [OCT]

Abstract

The primary objective of the present method and apparatus is to provide a transportable diagnosis system for a reliable method to examine the conditions of a human eye lens. The method provides precise and safe technique for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer'"'"'s Disease (AD) which is not involved brain surgery or biopsy. The detection of deposited amyloid plaque in the eyes of the patient has been discovered to be a possible diagnosis solution. The disclosed method uses Terahertz waves in both time and frequency domains instead of laser for scanning the eye of the AD patient to precisely image the amyloid layer non-evasively in real time and to map the deposited plaque with high resolution which can easily distinguish the abnormality of an AD patient with the comparison of the patient eye lens test to the available signature of a normal person and the signature of a person with common age-related cataracts.

Claims

1. An apparatus for early diagnosis of Alzheimer, by an eye lens test;

comprising;

a) an electromagnetic source;

b) a scanning system coupled to the electromagnetic source;

c) a scanning system to scan the eye lens in two dimensions

d) an optical arrangement system to generate reference sources for detector

e) a detector

f) a matching amplifier coupled to the detector;

g) a control/display system to receive data from matching amplifier to interpret the test results.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the electromagnetic source is a Terahertz signal generator.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the scanning system includes collimation, focusing, and beam positioner systems.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the optical arrangement includes variable optical delay lines and Terahertz sweep generators,

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the scanner and display system are inside a transportable system together with the other elements recited in claim 1.

6. A method for early diagnosis of Alzheimer, comprising:

a) generate and tailor Terahertz signal;

b) split Terahertz signal to scanning system and optical arrangement;

c) inserting into the optical arrangement a Terahertz detector;

d) inserting the output of the Terahertz detector to a matching amplifier

e) Inserting the output of the matching amplifier to a control and display system

f) illuminating the eye lens with a focused scanning Terahertz beam; and

g) redirecting the reflection of the eye lens into detector.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising using a scanning system dynamically synchronized to the scanned terahertz signals that are illuminating the eye lens.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the Terahertz signal generator covers terahertz bandwidth from 200-10000 GHz.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising setting up a terahertz detector to detect either the difference signal from the reflected terahertz signal from the eye lens and the reference signal split from the Terahertz signal generator, or mixer output when inserting local sweep generator and reflected terahertz signal from the eye lens to the two inputs of the mixer.

10. The method of claim 6, further comprising using matching amplifiers to improve the detected signals.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising forming an image from the reflected pulses at each layer perpendicular to the eye lens surface.

12. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

a. comparing the images with a calibrated reference stored in memory;

b. combining the images at different layers to obtain the tomography of the Amyloid layer in eye lens;

c. indicating regions of coincidence and region of non-coincidence; and

d. showing the result in control and display system.

13. The method of claim 6 wherein the detector acts as a convolver to detect the reflected terahertz signals from the eye lens, which arrive at detector, synchronized to its split reference beam.

14. The method of claim 6 wherein the detector acts as a mixer to detect the difference signal between reflected terahertz signals from the eye lens and the local sweep oscillator arrives from optical arrangement.

15. The method of claim 11, further providing a three dimensional image of the eye lens in real time which includes compositional information about the eye lens.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein the image is comprised of a plurality of horizontal bands, each band being adjacent to another, with equal bandwidths

17. The method of claim 15, further including comparing the images with a calibrated reference stored in memory, indicating regions of coincidence and region of non-coincidence, and combining the images at different layers to obtain the tomography of the deposited amyloid layers of the eye lens.