Abstract
Purpose: :
The use of mice for the studies of myopia has been complicated by the small size of their eyes and the lack of well-established techniques for accurate measurement of small changes observed in the growing mouse eye in vivo. The purpose of this study was to carry out an in vivo high-resolution analysis of the mouse eye growth and plasticity during early postnatal period of development.
Methods: :
High-resolution small animal 4.7T Bruker Avance MRI System was used to analyze eye growth in C57BL/6J mice during early postnatal period (P21-P89) and to measure eye changes in experimental mouse myopia in vivo.
Results: :
Analysis of the MRI images acquired in a group of C57BL/6J mice revealed that the growth of the mouse eye decelerates with age. The anterior chamber growth exhibits similar pattern, while the growth rate of the lens remains constant at least until P89. The lens overgrows the eye at P40 resulting in rapid decline of the vitreous chamber depth. The corneal radius of curvature exhibits linear increase between P21 and P89. Comparison of the axial length of the eye with its width revealed that the mouse eye maintains slightly prolate spheroidal shape throughout early postnatal period. Diffuser-induced visual form deprivation in photopic conditions caused enlargement of the eye in P24 mice. The deprived eye was 54±9 µm larger in diameter compared to the control fellow eye mostly due to accelerated growth of the postequatorial segment of the eye.
Conclusions: :
The growth pattern of the mouse eye during early postnatal period is in general similar to the growth pattern of the primate eye. Visual form deprivation in photopic conditions causes experimental myopia in young C57BL/6J mice, which has key features of primate myopia.
Keywords: myopia • imaging methods (CT, FA, ICG, MRI, OCT, RTA, SLO, ultrasound) • visual development