CONFOCAL LASER DOPPLER FLOWMETRY IN THE OPTIC NERVE

眼部血流量的测量是提高视力的关键。 了解几种困扰眼睛的疾病，包括 青光眼。关于青光眼病因的一个假设是 视神经组织因血流不足而受损，原因是 组织调节自身血液供应的能力不足 对眼压升高的反应。临床上有用的血液 为了充分研究这一假设，流量测量工具是必要的。 拟议的研究建立在第一阶段研究结果的基础上。 项目中，共焦激光多普勒血流测量装置 已经开发出来，并被证明允许定量测量 人为地引起血液流动的变化。第二阶段的工作 这个项目的目的是拓宽视网膜区域，可以 在单次测量期间进行调查，提高了仪器的易用性 并通过使用它来研究其临床适用性 确定(预测的)疾病进程的影响程度，例如 青光眼、糖尿病视网膜病变和老年性黄斑变性 视网膜血流量。 建议的商业应用： 这项研究可能会导致非侵入性、临床 视神经血流深度分辨测量仪 通过未扩张的瞳孔的视神经地形图。这样一种乐器 将在临床早期检测和治疗领域中非常有用 监测疾病进程及其治疗。

The measurement of ocular blood flow is essential to improve the understanding of several diseases afflicting the eye, including glaucoma. One of the hypotheses for the cause of glaucoma is that the optic nerve tissue is damaged by insufficient blood flow, because of a deficiency in the tissue's ability to regulate its own blood supply in response to increased intraocular pressure. A clinically useful blood flow measurement tool is necessary to fully investigate this hypothesis. The proposed research builds on the results found during Phase I of this project, in which a confocal laser Doppler blood flow measuring device has been developed and was shown to allow quantitative measurements of artificially induced changes in blood flow. Work during the Phase II of this project is intended to broaden the retinal area that can be investigated during a single measurement, improve the instrument's ease of use and investigate its clinical applicability by using it to determine the degree of (predicted) impact disease processes such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age related macular degeneration have on retinal blood flow. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: This research may lead to the development of a non-invasive, clinical instrument for depth-resolved measurements of optic nerve bloodflow and optic nerve topography through undilated pupils. Such an instrument would be very useful in the clinical areas of early detection and monitoring of disease processes and their treatment.