Method to investigate temporal dynamics of ganglion and other retinal cells in the living human eye

Kazuhiro Kurokawa; Zhuolin Liu; James Crowell; Furu Zhang; Donald T. Miller

doi:10.1117/12.2292413

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19 February 2018 Method to investigate temporal dynamics of ganglion and other retinal cells in the living human eye

Kazuhiro Kurokawa, Zhuolin Liu, James Crowell, Furu Zhang, Donald T. Miller

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Proceedings Volume 10474, Ophthalmic Technologies XXVIII; 104740W (2018) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2292413
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2018, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The inner retina is critical for visual processing, but much remains unknown about its neural circuitry and vulnerability to disease. A major bottleneck has been our inability to observe the structure and function of the cells composing these retinal layers in the living human eye. Here, we present a noninvasive method to observe both structural and functional information. Adaptive optics optical coherence tomography (AO-OCT) is used to resolve the inner retinal cells in all three dimensions and novel post processing algorithms are applied to extract structure and physiology down to the cellular level. AO-OCT captured the 3D mosaic of individual ganglion cell somas, retinal nerve fiber bundles of micron caliber, and microglial cells, all in exquisite detail. Time correlation analysis of the AO-OCT videos revealed notable temporal differences between the principal layers of the inner retina. The GC layer was more dynamic than the nerve fiber and inner plexiform layers. At the cellular level, we applied a customized correlation method to individual GCL somas, and found a mean time constant of activity of 0.57 s and spread of ±0.1 s suggesting a range of physiological dynamics even in the same cell type. Extending our method to slower dynamics (from minutes to one year), time-lapse imaging and temporal speckle contrast revealed appendage and soma motion of resting microglial cells at the retinal surface.

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Kazuhiro Kurokawa, Zhuolin Liu, James Crowell, Furu Zhang, and Donald T. Miller "Method to investigate temporal dynamics of ganglion and other retinal cells in the living human eye", Proc. SPIE 10474, Ophthalmic Technologies XXVIII, 104740W (19 February 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2292413

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