It has been suggested that Alzheimer’s disease can be detected and monitored in a non-invasive fashion by imaging amyloid deposition in the lens. A team including Drs. Ho, Troncoso and Eberhart from Neuropathology, and Drs. Knox and Starck from Ophthalmology, therefore evaluated expression of proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease in postmortem eyes and brains in a case-control study. Immunostains for β-amyloid, phospho-tau and Congo red stains were performed in their laboratory in both brains and eyes. No amyloid deposits or abnormal tau accumulations were detected in the lens, retina or other structures in the eyes of Alzheimer’s disease patients. Eyes from Parkinson’s disease patients were also examined, and lacked definite Lewy bodies or Lewy neurites. Abnormal protein aggregations characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are thus not commonly present in the retinas or lens of affected patients when assayed using the same protocols as in the brain. This suggests that β-amyloid, phospho-tau and α-synuclein either do not deposit in the eye in a manner analogous to brain, or are present at lower levels or in different forms, potentially complicating efforts to track these diseases in the eye. The study was supported in part by the Johns Hopkins ADRC, and was published in Brain Pathology.