Retinal image degradation by optical aberrations and light scatter in normal and albino chick eyes

Comprehensive evaluation of retinal image quality requires that light scatter as well as optical aberrations be considered. In investigating how retinal image degradation affects eye growth in the chick model of myopia, we developed a simple method based on Shack-Hartmann images for evaluating the effects of both monochromatic aberrations and light scatter on retinal image quality. We further evaluated our method in the current study by applying it to data collected from both normal chick eyes and albino eyes that were expected to show increased intraocular light scatter. To analyze light scatter in our method, each Shack-Hartmann dot is treated as a local point spread function (PSF) that is the convolution of a local scatter PSF and a lenslet diffraction PSF. The local scatter PSF is obtained by de-convolution, and is fitted with a circularly symmetric Gaussian function using nonlinear regressions. A whole-eye scatter PSF also can be derived from the local scatter PSFs for the analyzed pupil. Aberrations are analyzed using OSA standard Zernike polynomials, and aberration-related PSF calculated from reconstructed wavefront using fast Fourier transform. Modulation transfer functions (MTFs) are computed separately for aberration and scatter PSFs, and a whole-eye MTF is derived as the product of the two. This method was applied to 4 normal and 4 albino eyes. Compared to normal eyes, albino eyes were more aberrated and showed greater light scatter. As a result, overall retinal image degradation was much greater in albino eyes than in normal eyes, with the relative contribution to retinal image degradation of light scatter compared to aberrations also being greater for albino eyes.

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