About This Webinar
When imaging the living human eye, even if a person has perfect vision, blur caused by ocular aberrations of the eye limits resolution. This blur rapidly fluctuates due to a number of factors, such as the impact of the heartbeat. Consequently, it is not possible using conventional methods, such as customized contact lenses, to correct for this blur. This blur can be corrected by using adaptive optics, which is a technique used in astronomy to remove the blurring effect of the atmosphere when acquiring images with ground-based telescopes. When combining adaptive optics with OCT, it is possible to image the structure and function of the retina at the single-cell level. This technology is revolutionizing the early detection of retinal disease. Given that the retina is a window to the brain, this ability opens the possibility of using retinal imaging for presymptomatic detection of neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.
Attendees will learn:
- The principles of adaptive optics and OCT.
- How to design and implement a retinal imaging system that combines the two technologies.
- Applications of such instrumentation.
Who should attend:
Engineers, researchers, and scientists interested in adaptive optics and OCT. Those working in biophotonics, optics, and imaging who design or implement imaging systems. Anyone who works in industries including astronomy, vision science, medicine, and microscopy.
About the presenter:
Karen Hampson, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in optometry at the University of Manchester. Her research expertise is in developing adaptive optics systems for vision science. She has worked in this area for more than 20 years, and she is the cofounder of the European Adaptive Optics Summer School. She graduated from Swansea University with a Master of Physics degree and completed a doctorate in adaptive optics at Imperial College London. Following this, she worked as a researcher at the University of Bradford in the department of optometry, and then at the University of Oxford in the departments of engineering science and experimental psychology. Her current work is in developing an adaptive optics OCT system for presymptomatic diagnosis of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disease. She trained for two years in transactional analysis psychotherapy and is a member of the Consortium for Vision and Oculomics in Psychiatry. She is also an associate editor for the Frontiers in Ophthalmology journal, New Technologies in Ophthalmology section, and is a senior member of Optica.