Abstract
Purpose :
Various diseases, such as keratoconus affecting the cornea, presbyopia in the lens, and glaucoma in the retina, can significantly affect the health of eye tissues. The ability to measure the biomechanical properties of these tissues is essential for detecting and monitoring these diseases, providing valuable insights into their causes.
Methods :
Reverberant optical coherence elastography (RevOCE) is an emerging method for high-resolution mechanical mapping of ocular tissues. It is based on imaging the reverberant shear field caused by the interference of multiple random shear waves. The multiple waves could be excited with either contact micro-actuators or non-contact using, e.g., air-coupled acoustic radiation force (ARF). RevOCE was used to assess the mechanical properties of the whole mouse eye globe as well as the process of partial crosslinking of porcine corneas.
Results :
In our recent study, we compared the axial and lateral mechanical resolution obtained by traditional wave-based OCE against RevOCE at different excitation frequencies (1, 5, and 10 kHz). Finally, we used this noncontact approach by utilizing a multi-focus ARF to excite the reverberant shear field and assess the biomechanical properties of a mouse eye globe. We also used RevOCE to characterize mechanical heterogeneity in the cornea by imaging the process of partial crosslinking.
Conclusions :
The results show that RevOCE offers superior elastography resolution (up to 10X) compared with traditional wave-based OCE. This allowed mapping of the biomechanical properties of the cornea, sclera, and retina of a mouse eye globe simultaneously.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Imaging in the Eye Conference, held in Seattle, WA, May 4, 2024.