‘Less is more’: Retinal imaging tweaks boost resolution by 33%
National Institutes of Health researchers have imaged retinal tissue in greater detail than ever before, according to a study published Thursday.
Scientists working on the project noninvasively visualized light-sensing cells in the back of the eye, known as photoreceptors, with 33% better resolution. This enhanced technique can better monitor cellular changes and help treat and prevent disease-related vision loss, experts explained March 11 in the journal Optica.
“Better imaging resolution will enable better tracking of degenerative changes that occur in retinal tissue,” said lead investigator Johnny Tam, PhD, a researcher with the National Eye Institute’s Clinical and Translational Imaging Unit, part of the NIH. “The goal of our research is to discern disease-related changes at the cellular level over time, possibly enabling much earlier detection of disease.”
For their study, the NEI team worked with a group of Stanford University investigators to tweak adaptive optics retinal imaging systems and block out some of the extra light that illuminates the eye.
Doing so created a ring of light, rather than a disk, Tam and colleagues reported. And after further adjusting the light coming back from the eye using a tiny pinhole, the group increased traditional retinal imaging resolution by 33%.
“Sometimes rods are hard to image because they are so small,” first author of the paper Rongwen Lu, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Clinical and Translational Imaging Unit at NEI, said in a statement. “By eliminating some of the light in the system, it actually makes it easier to see the rods. So in this case, less is more.”
Matt joined Chicago’s TriMed team in 2018 covering all areas of health imaging after two years reporting on the hospital field. He holds a bachelor’s in English from UIC, and enjoys a good cup of coffee and an interesting documentary.