Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography imaging of the anterior mouse eye

Polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) enables noninvasive, high-resolution imaging of tissue polarization properties. In the anterior segments of human eyes, PS-OCT allows the visualization of birefringent and depolarizing structures. We present the use of PS-OCT for imaging the murine anterior eye. Using a spectral domain PS-OCT setup operating in the 840-nm regime, we performed in vivo volumetric imaging in anesthetized C57BL/6 mice. The polarization properties of murine anterior eye structures largely replicated those known from human PS-OCT imagery, suggesting that the mouse eye may also serve as a model system under polarization contrast. However, dissimilarities were found in the depolarizing structure of the iris which, as we confirmed in postmortem histological sections, were caused by anatomical differences between both species. In addition to the imaging of tissues in the anterior chamber and the iridocorneal angle, we demonstrate longitudinal PS-OCT imaging of the murine anterior segment during mydriasis as well as birefringence imaging of corneal pathology in an aged mouse.