Imaging autofluorescence temporal signatures of the human ocular fundus in vivo

Abstract

We demonstrate real-time in vivo fundus imaging capabilities of our fluorescence lifetime imaging technology for the first time. This implementation of lifetime imaging uses light emitting diodes to capture full-field images capable of showing direct tissue contrast without executing curve fitting or lifetime calculations. Preliminary results of fundus images are presented, investigating autofluorescence imaging potential of various retina biomarkers for early detection of macular diseases.

Dynamic optical contrast imaging (DOCI): system theory for rapid, wide-field, multispectral optical imaging using fluorescence lifetime contrast mechanism

“…The general model of the DOCI system can be described as a finite integration of the convolution between the rectangular response and the hypothetical exponential sample decay as shown in Eq. (11).…”

“…Furthermore, the absence of dye or injected contrast simplifies use of the technique in an intraoperative environment. Prior work have provided a conceptual approach for the DOCI algorithm; [9][10][11] and remarkable contrast have been demonstrated between different tissue types in ex vivo pilot studies with human tissue. 12,13 The aim of this work is to mathematically model the DOCI system through rigorous proofs to describe the contrast mechanism of the system and differentiate DOCI from existing fluorescence lifetime imaging methodologies.…”