**Author details**

Najwa Mohammed Al- Dabbagh1 , Sulaiman Al-Saleh1 , Nourah Al-Dohayan1 , Misbahul Arfin2 , Mohammad Tariq2 and Abdulrahman Al-Asmari2\*

\*Address all correspondence to: abdulrahman.alasmari@gmail.com

1 Department of Ophthalmology, Riyadh Military Hospital Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2 Research Center, Riyadh Military Hospital Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

## **References**


District, Guangzhou. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science 2006;47: 2782-2788.

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in the regulation of lipids following axonal injury. However, our results together with similar data elucidated a potential overlap between the degenerative pathways underlying glaucoma/

This study clearly showed that the APOE polymorphism represents a major risk factor for ophthalmic/neurodegenerative diseases and this study together with previous studies pointed to a possible association between APOE alleles and PG/PEX in defined populations. However, the association between APOE genotype and PG/PEX seems to differ among studied popula‐ tions, indicating a modifying rather than a direct genetic effect. Although our results indicated *ε4* allele to be significantly associated with the development of primary glaucoma (POAG and PACG) and PEX in a Saudi population. Further studies are warranted to understand the role of APOE allelic isoforms in various ethnic populations and to predict the predisposition to

The authors would like to thank S. Sadaf Rizvi and Mohammad Al-Asmari for their help in

, Sulaiman Al-Saleh1

1 Department of Ophthalmology, Riyadh Military Hospital Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

and 2020. British Journal of Ophthalmology 2006;90: 262-267.

[1] Quigley HA, Broman AT. The number of people with glaucoma worldwide in 2010

[2] He M, Foster PJ, Huang W, Zheng Y, Freidman DS, et al. Prevalence and Clinical characteristics of Glaucoma in Adult Chinese: A population based study in Liwan

and Abdulrahman Al-Asmari2\*

\*Address all correspondence to: abdulrahman.alasmari@gmail.com

2 Research Center, Riyadh Military Hospital Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

, Nourah Al-Dohayan1

, Misbahul Arfin2

,

PEX and Alzheimer-type dementia and brain injury.

degenerative eye diseases like PEX and glaucoma.

**5. Conclusion**

146 Glaucoma - Basic and Clinical Aspects

**Acknowledgements**

laboratory work.

**Author details**

Mohammad Tariq2

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**Chapter 8**

**Progressive Neurodegeneration of Retina in Alzheimer's**

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting 5.4 million people globally and is predicated to affect over 100 million people worldwide by 2050 [1]. It is the most common form of progressive cognitive decline. As originally described by Alois Alzheimer in 1907, AD is associated with extracellular amyloid plaque formation and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles in the brain regions involved in learning and memory processes [2]. A major problem of the disease is, perhaps, altered proteolytic processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) resulting in the production and aggregation of neurotoxic forms of Aβ. Amyloid plaques are extracellular deposits of fibrils and amorphous aggregates of β-amyloid (Aβ). Compact plaques have been considered to be associated with neuronal and synaptic loss, dystrophic neurites, hypertrophic astrocytes, activated microglia cells, and various features of inflamma‐ tory processes. The intracellular neurofibrillary tangles consist of paired helical filaments formed by the microtubule-associated protein tau that exhibits hyperphosphorylation and oxidative modifications. Increasing lines of evidence have shown that visual impairment is

Glaucoma is recognized as an age-related neurodegenerative disorder – optic neuropathy. Being the second leading cause of blindness, it is estimated that glaucoma will affect more than 80 million people worldwide with at least 6 - 8 million individuals becoming bilaterally blind by the year 2020 [6]. Comparing to normal population, the prevalence of glaucoma is about 2.5 times higher in AD patients [7]. In 2011, Nucci and co-workers reported that glaucoma progression was associated with altered levels of Aβ and tau proteins in cerebral spinal fluid

> © 2013 Chiu et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Disease — Are β-Amyloid Peptide and Tau New**

**Pathological Factors in Glaucoma?**

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Kin Chiu, Kwok-Fai So and

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53428

**1. Introduction**

Raymond Chuen-Chung Chang

associated with the prevalence of AD [3]-[5].

