Open AccessMicro-optical coherence tomography for high-resolution morphologic imaging of cellular and nerval corneal micro-structures
Author(s) -
Andreas Wartak,
Merle S. Schenk,
Verena Bühler,
Stefan Kassumeh,
Reginald Birngruber,
Guillermo J. Tearney
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
biomedical optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.362
H-Index - 86
ISSN - 2156-7085
DOI - 10.1364/boe.402971
Subject(s) - optical coherence tomography , nerve plexus , confocal microscopy , stromal cell , cornea , confocal , nerve fiber , plexus , pathology , microscopy , anatomy , tomography , materials science , medicine , ophthalmology , biology , optics , radiology , microbiology and biotechnology , physics
We demonstrate the highest resolution (1.5×1.5×1 µm) micrometer optical coherence tomography (µOCT) imaging of the morphologic micro-structure of excised swine and non-human primate corneas. Besides epithelial, stromal, and endothelial cell morphology, this report focuses on investigating the most peripheral corneal nerve fibers, the nerve fibers of the subbasal plexus (SBP). Alterations of SBP nerve density and composition are reportedly linked to major neurologic disorders, such as diabetic neuropathy, potentially indicating earliest onsets of denervation. Here, the fine, hyperreflective, epithelial nerve structures located just above Bowman's membrane, are i) visualized using our µOCT prototype, ii) validated by comparison to fluorescence confocal microscopy (including selective immunohistochemical staining), and iii) segmented using state-of-the-art image processing. Here, we also introduce polarization sensitive (PS) µOCT imaging, demonstrating, to the best of our knowledge, the highest resolution corneal PS-OCT scans reported to date.