Proto-clinical optoretinography dependence on temporal and spatial resolution

Optoretinography (ORG) enables non-invasive measurement of stimulus-evoked photoreceptor deformation using phase-sensitive optical coherence tomography (OCT). In this study, we evaluated how lateral resolution, acquisition speed, and spatial and inter-trial averaging influence velocity-based phase ORG measured with a raster-scanning spectral-domain OCT platform configured to resemble clinically realistic hardware. Seven healthy eyes were imaged while varying beam diameter (1.6-4.8 mm), B-scan rate (400-800 Hz), and averaging strategies. The characteristic biphasic response, a rapid contraction followed by slower elongation, was consistently observed across all conditions. Increasing NA improved structural cone visibility but did not proportionally enhance averaged ORG metrics, while moderate NA often yielded more stable signals. Higher acquisition speeds sharpened the measured contraction dynamics but reduced the signal-to-noise ratio due to increased phase noise. Both spatial and trial averaging substantially improved SNR. These findings demonstrate that repeatable phase-based ORGs can be achieved without cellular resolution or ultrahigh scan rates, and provide practical guidance for implementing proto-clinical ORG on conventional OCT systems.