High Resolution

Yen-Yu Ian Shih¹, Li Guang¹, Bryan H. De La Garza¹, Eric R. Muir¹, Timothy Q. Duong¹

The retina is sandwiched by retinal and choroidal vasculature and has an avascular layer in between. This study employed high resolution spin-echo, gradient-echo MRI and MION to reveal ∆R2 and ∆R2* profiles across the retinal thickness at an 11.7T scanner using a retina linearization analysis. The MRI-based vessel density index was also tabulated. This technique has potential to serve as an alternative method of postmortem fluorescence microscopy-based vessel density measurement, which has been widely used to quantify retinal and choroidal vascular degeneration or neovascularization in retinal diseases.