Melanin Pigmentation in Rat Eyes: In Vivo Imaging by Polarization-Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography and Comparison to Histology

Abstract

This in vivo and ex vivo investigation of posterior rat eyes indicates that melanin is the cause of depolarization in retinal PS-OCT images. It further demonstrates that melanin pigmentation in the RPE and choroid can be quantified via depolarization imaging and therefore suggests that PS-OCT is a useful tool for the noninvasive quantitative assessment of pigmentary changes in vision-threatening diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.