Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York, US have developed a new non-invasive retinal imaging technique that could prevent vision loss in diseases like glaucoma. The paper appeared in the journal PNAS.
Say the researchers, The new technique called multi-offset detection, which images the human retina - a layer of cells at the back of the eye that are essential for vision - was able to distinguish individual retinal ganglion cells, or RGCs, which bear most of the responsibility of relaying visual information to the brain. The death of these RGCs causes vision loss in glaucoma, the researchers said. You only have 1.2 million RGCs in the whole eye, so a loss of 100,000 is significant. The sooner we can catch the loss, the better our chances of halting the disease and preventing vision loss. The technique we used offers the opportunity to evaluate many cell classes that have previously remained inaccessible to imaging in the living eye.