A new opportunity in early diagnosis of eye diseases: imaging the tiny length oscillations of photoreceptor cells in the eye in response a flickering light

Researchers from the International Centre for Translational Eye Research (ICTER, Poland) with scientists from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and University of California-Irvine (US) developed an innovative technique called “flicker optoretinography” (f-ORG), which facilitates fast, non-invasive, and precise monitoring of the functionality of retinal photoreceptors. Our method, based on Spatio Temporal Optical Coherence Tomography (STOC-T), enables tracking of the minute (nanometric) physical length changes of retinal photoreceptors caused by molecular conformational changes during phototransduction (the first step in the visual process), without the need for prolonged exposure to darkness and without contact with the surface of the eye. This represents a significant step forward in the diagnosis of retinal diseases.

The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)