PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
Diseases such as diabetes affect the retinal vasculature and the health of the neural retina, leading to vision problems. We describe here an imaging method and analysis procedure that enables characterization of the retinal vessel walls with cellular-level resolution, potentially providing markers for eye diseases. Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy is used with a modified detection scheme to include four simultaneous offset aperture channels. The magnitude of the phase gradient derived from these offset images is used to visualize the structural characteristics of the vessels. The average standard deviation image provides motion contrast and enables segmentation of the vessel lumen. Segmentation of blood vessel walls provides quantitative measures of geometrical characteristics of the vessel walls, including vessel and lumen diameters, wall thickness, and wall-to-lumen ratio. Retinal diseases may affect the structural integrity of the vessel walls, their elasticity, their permeability, and their geometrical characteristics. The ability to measure these changes is valuable for understanding the vascular effects of retinal diseases, monitoring disease progression, and drug testing. In addition, loss of structural integrity of the blood vessel wall may result in microaneurysms, a hallmark lesion of diabetic retinopathy, which may rupture or leak and further create vision impairment. Early identification of such structural abnormalities may open new treatment avenues for disease management and vision preservation. Functional testing of retinal circuitry through high-resolution measurement of vasodilation as a response to controlled light stimulation of the retina (neurovascular coupling) is another application of our method and can provide an unbiased evaluation of one\'s vision and enable early detection of retinal diseases and monitoring treatment results.
摘要：
糖尿病等疾病会影响视网膜血管系统和神经视网膜的健康，导致视力问题。我们在这里描述了一种成像方法和分析程序，能够以细胞水平的分辨率表征视网膜血管壁，可能为眼部疾病提供标记。自适应光学扫描激光检眼镜与修改的检测方案一起使用，以包括四个同时偏移的孔径通道。从这些偏移图像导出的相位梯度的大小用于可视化血管的结构特征。平均标准偏差图像提供运动对比度并且使得能够分割血管腔。血管壁的分割提供了血管壁的几何特征的定量测量,包括血管和管腔直径，壁厚,和壁与管腔的比率。视网膜疾病可能会影响血管壁的结构完整性，它们的弹性，它们的渗透性，以及它们的几何特征。测量这些变化的能力对于理解视网膜疾病的血管效应很有价值，监测疾病进展，和药物测试。此外,血管壁结构完整性的丧失可能导致微动脉瘤，糖尿病性视网膜病变的标志性病变，这可能会破裂或泄漏，并进一步造成视力障碍。这种结构异常的早期识别可能为疾病管理和视力保护开辟新的治疗途径。通过高分辨率测量血管舒张作为对视网膜受控光刺激的反应(神经血管耦合)的视网膜电路的功能测试是我们方法的另一种应用,并且可以提供对一个人的视力的无偏评估,并且能够早期检测视网膜疾病和监测治疗结果。
