Non-invasive retinal imaging in mice with fluorescent Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy and Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

Visualization of the internal structures of the retina is critical for clinical diagnosis and monitoring of pathology as well as for medical research investigating the root causes of retinal degeneration. The aim of this thesis is to develop multi-modal non-invasive imaging technology for studying retinal degeneration and gene therapy in mice. We have constructed a FD-OCT prototype and combined it with a Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope (SLO) to permit real time alignment of the retinal field of view. Fluorescence detection was integrated with the SLO to enable the en face localization of a molecular contrast signal, which is important for retinal angiography and retinal auto-fluorescence imaging. The integrated FD-OCT/fSLO system was investigated for imaging the retina of mice in vivo. The results of this research have demonstrated that the state of art FD-OCT/fSLO system OCT is a powerful tool to conduct research retinal degeneration and gene therapy in mice.