Retina in OCT

UHR-OCT profile of
retinal sublayers along foveal slope. In-vivo scan from healthy human subject.

Cryosection of foveal slope in normal human retina (pigment epithelium artefactually detached)

Collaborations with the
Biomedical Imaging Group
Univ. of Cardiff

During the recent years our group shared the excitement
arising from applying technologies
advanced by the group of Wolfgang Drexler on the eye's transparent media.

Ultrahigh resolution optical coherence tomography allows to
directly visualize the microarchitecture of living retinas in situ.

Distal elements of foveal cone photoreceptors and pigment epithelium (colorized)

(A) pancorrected UHR OCT of distal retina

(B) high resolution OCT

CB: cone cell body; LM: external limiting membrane; MC: miicrovillous müller cell tips at ELM; IS: inner segment; ELL: ellipsoid =mitochondrial region of IS; MY: myoid= cytoplasmatic (+Golgi app etc) region if IS; OS: outer segment, cmv: calycal microvilli at IS-OS transition; PE: pigment epithelium;

FERNANDEZ, E. J., et al. Ultrahigh resolution optical coherence
tomography and pancorrection for cellular imaging
of the living human retina.
Opt Express, 16, 11083-94 (2008).

Recently - by the use of adaptive optics and chromatic aberration correction -
resolution approaches the cellular level and the task has shifted to identification of axial substructure of single photoreceptors.

TOWARDS SUBCELLULAR IN-VIVO RESOLUTION

M.Glösmann et al.; Inv.Opht.Vis.Sci 44:1696 (2003)

E.M.Anger et al.; Eyp Eye Res 78:1117 (2004)

K. Bizheva et al.; PNAS 103:5066 (2006) see also R.Pflug's page

As these signals differ substantially from the images obtained
with classical histological techniques however,
their assignment to classical morphology is often difficult.

We participated in as series of comparative studies
learning to identify the retinal sublayers in OCTs of model species
by correlating them to the corresponding elements in histological preparations.

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