Abstract
Assessing oxygen saturation (sO2) remains challenging but is nonetheless necessary for understanding retinal metabolism. We and others previously achieved oximetry on major retinal vessels and measured the total retinal oxygen metabolic rate in rats using visible-light optical coherence tomography. Here we extend oximetry measurements to capillaries and investigate all three retinal vascular plexuses by amplifying and extracting the spectroscopic signal from each capillary segment under the guidance of optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography. Using this approach, we measured capillary sO2 in the retinal circulation in rats, demonstrated reproducibility of the results, validated the measurements in superficial capillaries with known perfusion pathways, and determined sO2 responses to hypoxia and hyperoxia in the different retinal capillary beds. OCT capillary oximetry has the potential to provide new insights into the retinal circulation in the normal eye as well as in retinal vascular diseases.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 11658 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 117 |
Issue number | 21 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 26 2020 |
Keywords
- Blood oxygenation
- Capillary oximetry
- Retinal capillary
- Vascular biology and physiology
- Visible light OCT
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General