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Updated: May 9, 2025
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Author Spotlight: Ex Vivo OCT-Based Multimodal Imaging of Human Donor Eyes for Research into Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Published on: May 26, 2023
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Latent retinal structural patterns with aging
Kei Sano1,2, Kota Fukai3, Ryo Terauchi2
1Department of Preventive Medicine, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan.
NPJ Digital Medicine
|May 3, 2025
Summary
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) reveals age-related retinal changes using novel archetypes. These patterns, including thinning in the macula, may enhance biomarker use for age-related diseases.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Gerontology
- Biomedical Imaging
Background:
- Optical coherence tomography (OCT) non-invasively assesses retinal structures.
- Retinal thinning is a potential biomarker for systemic diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
- Age-related retinal changes are not fully understood, hindering disease differentiation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a granular method for assessing age-related spatial changes in the inner retina.
- To identify and characterize latent retinal archetypes associated with aging.
- To explore the utility of these archetypes as biomarkers for age-related conditions.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a large dataset of 189,387 OCT scans from 22,494 individuals.
- Developed 36 distinct retinal archetypes from macula and peripapillary sector images.
- Analyzed associations between archetypes and participant age, including myopia subgroup analysis.
Main Results:
- Identified age-related archetypes characterized by macular thinning (total or superior).
- Observed inferior thinning in the macula's ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer associated with aging in myopic individuals.
- Found age-related effects in the peripapillary sector manifested as changes in retinal artery trajectory shapes.
Conclusions:
- Latent retinal archetypes provide a detailed approach to understanding age-related retinal alterations.
- These archetypes show promise for improving the use of retinal biomarkers in diagnosing and monitoring age-related diseases.
- Further research into retinal archetypes can unlock new diagnostic and prognostic capabilities.
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