Latest research news
MRI of blood perfusion for ischemic retinal diseases
Retinal ischemia plays a significant role in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) — two of the most common sight-threatening diseases in the developed world. Treatments for these conditions are limited, and there is...
Diabetic retinopathy: early clinical signs and intervention using a Connexin43 modulator
Diabetes is a long-term condition that describes a group of metabolic diseases caused by high sugar levels. In the eye, high blood sugar causes damage to small blood vessels, which swell and may leak fluid. We have identified that even minor blood vessel leakage...
Investigating the age-related alternations of lens physiological optics usring MRI
The lens physiological optics depends on its water and protein contents. The lens physiological optics alters with ageing, leading to the onset of presbyopia and nuclear cataract. The mechanism behind remains uncertain, owing to lack of non-invasive tools for...
The presbyopia study: using clinical optometry and MRI to study ageing and accommodation in the lens
Presbyopia, or the loss of accommodation power of the human lens, leads to the loss of clear near vision in adults >45 years old. This study investigates how the lens changes shape, position, and internal properties as we change viewing distance, and how this...
Identifying early retinal markers of frontotemporal dementia
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a leading cause of early onset dementia. It is crucial to identify individuals who are in the early, pre-symptomatic stages of FTD, particularly as treatments are now being developed for neurodegenerative disorders. Imaging of the eye...
Uncorrected presbyopia: a risk factor for ischaemic retinal disease?
Adults over ~50 years of age are Presbyopic: they have lost the ability to change the eye’s focus and so near objects are out of focus without reading glasses. Millions of older people in the developing world have no access to spectacles, so their presbyopia is...
The lens paradox: why does the eye lose power as it grows?
Our eyes become more farsighted as we age due to the loss of refractive power in the ocular lens. This is termed the lens paradox because the eye is expected to gain power as it grows. Why or how it occurs is unclear. We believe that an age-related shift of the...
Using eye movements to signal loss of peripheral vision in glaucoma
Optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) is a reflexive eye movement that happens when we see movement. We have been measuring how OKN changes when we simulate a loss of peripheral vision, as occurs in glaucoma. We are doing this to determine whether OKN could be used to detect...
Identifying where crowding happens in the brain using MRI
The sense that we are able to see things equally well across our field of view is an illusion. “High resolution” vision is limited to <1% of the field. The remaining “peripheral” vision is quite poor, and is impeded further when the target is surrounded by other...