Temporal phase evolution OCT for measurement of tissue deformation in the human retina in-vivo

We demonstrate the use of temporal phase evolution (TPE-) OCT methods to evaluate retinal tissue deformation in-vivo over time periods of several seconds. A custom built spectral domain (SD)-OCT system with an integrated retinal tracker, ensuring stable imaging with sub-speckle precision, was used for imaging. TPE-OCT measures and images phase differences between an initial reference B-scan and each of the subsequent B-scans of the evaluated temporal sequence. In order to demonstrate the precision and repeatability of the measurements, retinal nerve fiber (RNF) tissue deformations induced by retinal vessels pulsating with the heartbeat were analyzed in several healthy subjects. We show TPE maps (M-scans of phase evolution as a function of position along B-scan trace vs. time) of wrapped phase data and corresponding deformation maps in selected regions of the RNF layer (RNFL) over the course of several cardiac cycles. A reproducible phase pattern is seen at each heartbeat cycle for all imaged volunteers. RNF tissue deformations near arteries and veins up to ∼ 1.6 µm were obtained with an average precision for a single pixel of about 30 nm. Differences of motion induced by arteries and veins are also investigated.