Direct Measures of Retinal Blood Flow and Autoregulation as Robust Biomarkers for Early Glaucoma

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Project Summary: There is strong evidence for a vascular component in the development and progression of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG). Specifically, glaucoma is associated with impaired retinal blood flow (RBF) and autoregulation of RBF. Autoregulatory impairment may precede retinal ganglion cell (RGC) loss and has been proposed as a potentially early, reversible biomarker. The rationale underlying this proposal is that highly precise and accurate, direct measures of RBF are necessary to study dynamic changes in RBF and their effect on RGCs. Current methods of quantifying RBF remain limited as the majority of imaging modalities provide indirect, relative measurements of RBF. We will directly measure RBF using two robust direct measures: erythrocyte mediated angiography flowmetry (EMAf) and multimodal adaptive optics (mAO). Both techniques allow for the highly accurate and precise measurement of RBF down to the capillary level in the human eye in vivo. We hypothesize that these direct measures of determining absolute RBF will show impaired autoregulation of microvascular RBF in early glaucoma and that this will correlate with glaucomatous damage. Our research program will test this hypothesis through two specific aims. In Specific Aim 1, we will determine the extent of impaired autoregulation associated with early glaucoma and measure its ability to predict further glaucoma damage. In Specific Aim 2 we will determine the relationship of capillary density and RGC density in glaucoma subjects and controls. We predict that early glaucoma subjects will exhibit significant measurable impaired vascular autoregulation as compared to controls and that local changes in these parameters will predict structural glaucomatous deficits.