The high resolution of adaptive optics optical coherence tomography (AO-OCT) allows 3-dimensional imaging of individual cone photoreceptors in vivo. Histology has revealed that short-wavelength-sensitive (S) cones have distinct structural features compared with medium-wavelength-sensitive (M) and long-wavelength-sensitive (L) cones. Quantifying these structural features in images of living human retinas may provide a simpler and quicker method for identifying S cones than by imaging cone function (e.g., optoretinography). Here, we present a quantitative method for using AO-OCT measurements of cone structure in a support vector machine (SVM) classifier to identify individual S cones. For every cone cell, we measured six key structural parameters: inner segment length (ISL), outer segment length (OSL), inner segment / outer segment conjunction (IS/OS) diameter, cone outer-segment tip (COST) diameter, IS/OS reflectance, and COST reflectance. ISL and OSL were determined from depth differences between reflections of the external limiting membrane (ELM) and IS/OS, and IS/OS and COST, respectively. Each reflection’s depth was measured with sub-pixel accuracy using Gaussian interpolation; its diameter was measured using the gradient information from the en face projection at that depth. Among 6,398 analyzed cones in six subjects, we found S cones had significantly longer ISLs, shorter OSLs, and wider IS/OS diameters than did cones of other types. We used these structural differences in our SVM model to classify cone spectral types and compared results with cone optoretinography. In five of the six subjects, S cones were identified with F1 scores ranging from 0.78 to 0.93.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.