Optical device to measure the density of the macular pigment in the human eye

ended

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in Europe. Since there is a lack of effective treatment modalities, prevention is of signficant importance. There are some evidences that nutritional counseling or intervention might reduce AMD incidence or slow down its progression. In particular, dietary modification or supplement intake may facilitate the increase of the retinal carotenoids lutein (L) and zeaxanthin (Z) that form the macular pigment (MP) and prevent neovascular age-related macular degeneration. In such supplement treatments and follow-ups, regular MP density (MPD) measurements should be essential. Until today, instruments capable of measuring MPD are either psychophysical requiring the subjective responses of the patients (operating on variants of heterochromatic flicker photometry) or are advanced imaging devices that record hyperspectral images of the macula and surrounding areas of the retina. In these instruments, MPD is derived by the relative absorption of the blue part of the spectrum that is characteristic to the absorption spectrum of MP. These instruments are either difficult to use or very expensive. Within the SeeCat-ERC Advanced Grant project, we developed a completely new optical approach to measure and map the MPD. It is practical, compact, cost effective, and can be operated without extensive training and maintenance. In this PoC project (OpMaEye), we aim to further develop the instrument by designing a working compact prototype and performing initial validations.