The laser enters the eye through the pupil to illuminate the region it has been focused onto and light reflected back leaves the same way. Additionally, the light is reflected off of a deformable mirror before and after exposure to the eye to diffuse optical aberrations. As in confocal SLO, light must pass through both a horizontal and a vertical scanning mirror before and after the eye is scanned to align the moving beam for eventual retinal faster images of the retina. A laser is collimated and then reflected off of a beam-splitting mirror. Once the subject is properly placed, wavefront correction and imaging takes place. After the eyes are sufficiently dilated, the subject is told to fixate on a target while in the mount. The subject's pupils are dilated using a dilating agent to minimize fluctuations from accommodation. The subject is placed in a dental impression mount fixed in a way to make it possible to manipulate the head in three dimensions.

The addition of microelectricalmechanical (MEMs) mirrors instead of larger, more expensive mirror deformable mirror systems to the apparatus made AOSLO further usable for a wider range of studies and for use in patients. The invention and adaptation of the Shack–Hartmann wavefront sensor for the apparatus produced images of the retina with much higher lateral resolution. However, this did not diffuse the small monochromatic aberrations resulting from light traveling through the anterior eye both into and out of the pupil during scanning. This first attempt did not use wavefront-detecting technology with its deformable mirror and estimated aberrations through pre-measured factors such as astigmatism. Īdaptive optics was first attempted for SLO in the 1980s. These aberrations (caused additionally by astigmatism and other factors affecting eye position) diminished lateral resolution and proved difficult to remove. However, using SLO for monitoring of individual retinal cells proved problematic because of optical aberrations created from the tissues of the anterior eye (specifically the cornea and lens). The use of confocal methods to diminish extra light by focusing detected light through a small pinhole made possible the imaging of individual layers of the retina with greater distinction than ever before. Scanning laser ophthalmoscopy developed as a method to view a distinct layer of the living eye at the microscopic level.

It utilizes adaptive optics to remove optical aberrations from images obtained from scanning laser ophthalmoscopy of the retina. Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy Īdaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (AOSLO) is a technique used to measure living retinal cells. Eye movements additionally can confound the data from SLO. While it is able to image the retina in real time, it has issues with reflections from eye astigmatism and the cornea. SLO utilizes horizontal and vertical scanning mirrors to scan a specific region of the retina and create raster images viewable on a television monitor. It has further been combined with adaptive optics technology to provide sharper images of the retina. It uses the technique of confocal laser scanning microscopy for diagnostic imaging of the retina or cornea of the human eye.Īs a method used to image the retina with a high degree of spatial sensitivity, it is helpful in the diagnosis of glaucoma, macular degeneration, and other retinal disorders. Scanning laser ophthalmoscopy ( SLO) is a method of examination of the eye.

Eyes raster images