The use of Stokes-Mueller polarimetry for assessment of amyloid-β progression in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

摘要

Alzheimer’s disease, being a major societal burden, demands improvement of current techniques for its treatment anddiagnostics. Currently only autopsy histology is able to provide the definite diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease. However,the procedure is rather time consuming and costly. In the current study, we utilized Stokes and Mueller polarimetrytechniques to screen for amyloid-β (Aβ) deposits in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded mouse brain tissue at differentstages of Alzheimer’s disease. The study has shown that the presence of Aβ plaques influences the properties of scatteredpolarized light. The Poincaré sphere was used as a graphical tool for the visualization of the alterations of the Stokes vector,obtained with Stokes polarimetry, whereas statistical moments were used for the analysis of depolarization distributionsthat were acquired with Mueller polarimetry. We demonstrate the sensitivity of the last component of the Stokes vector,the degree of polarization and high-order statistical moments of depolarization to the structural alterations in brain tissue,which correspond to the disease progression. The described approach has a potential to improve the existing pathologyscreening methods and facilitates Aβ detection in AD research.