Functional-retinal Imaging Device for the detection of glaucoma

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this grant is to develop and demonstrate a new device, based on a scanning laser ophthalmoscope, for functional imaging of the retina. Two prototype devices based on flood illumination fundus cameras have been developed and tested on both human subjects and animal models (cats and monkeys). Preliminary results of experiments conducted on both cameras are presented. Briefly, a functional signal is detected with both devices. To improve the signal to noise ratio a new functional-Retinal Imaging Device (fRID) is proposed. In Phase I the device will be tested on animals only. The grant will process the functional images using both standard methods that remove an average or baseline image; then we calculate changes from the baseline. Additionally, we have developed techniques that use blind source separation methods and independent component analysis as more sophisticated tools to extract the low level signals from the background reflectance of the retina. These techniques have been applied in the analysis of functional signals from brain scans using functional MRI. The application of the clinical device will be in the early detection of loss of retinal function due to diseases such as glaucoma, which is a chronic degenerative disease of the retinal ganglion cells. Glaucoma afflicts about 3 million Americans and of those, up to 120,000 may be legally blind. Unfortunately, treatment to patients suffering from glaucoma may be delayed due to the inability of current devices to detect nerve fiber loss in the early stages of glaucoma. The proposed device will be designed for early detection of retinal function in localized areas of the entire retina. The proposed device will provide a new diagnostic for early detection of glaucoma in the more than three million americans afflicted with this eye disease. The functional-Retinal Imaging Device (f-RID) will offer an image of the retina showing local areas of reduce visual function in a highly sensitive manner.