Austin Roorda

Research Interests

Lab Research Interests: High resolution retinal imaging, adaptive optics, physiological optics, limits of human vision.

Research Summary

The human eye has a complex and exquisitely designed optical system yet, when compared with modern optical systems, its image quality is surprisingly poor. Our lab investigates these earliest stages of vision, from the formation of the retinal image to its sampling by the photoreceptor mosaic.

In our research we develop novel instruments to measure and overcome the optical limits of the eye. For example, we employ adaptive optics - a technology originally developed for astronomical imaging from ground-based telescopes - to correct the eye's aberrations and to image and/or present stimuli to the retina with unprecedented resolution. Overcoming optical limitations with adaptive optics has allowed us to make new discoveries in vision science, from mapping the trichromatic cone mosaic for the first time ever to learning how human visual acuity responds to an aberration correction.

Our most recent effort involves the development and use of the Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) for such clinical applications as blood flow, optical sectioning of the retina, microperimetry, precise measurements of fixation and eye-tracking. We are making instruments more robust, and we are making them more compact using state-of-the-art wavefront correcting technology such as MEMS deformable mirrors. Such non-invasive microscopic imaging techniques promise to improve diagnosis, understanding and even treatment of blinding retinal diseases.

Selected Publications

Grieve, K.F., Roorda, A. “Intrinsic Signals from Human Cone Photoreceptors” Invest.Ophthalmol.Vis.Sci. 49(2), 713-719 (2008)

Arathorn D. W., Yang Q., Vogel C. R., Zhang Y., Tiruveedhula P., and Roorda A., "Retinally stabilized cone-targeted stimulus delivery," Opt. Express 15, 13731-13744 (2007)  

Zhang, Y., Poonja, S., Roorda, A. "MEMS-based Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy" Optics Letters, 31, 1268-1270 (2006)

Martin, J.A., Roorda, A., "Direct and Non-Invasive Assessment of Parafoveal Capillary Leukocyte Velocity" Ophthalmology 112(12) 2219-2224 (2005)

Roorda, A., Williams, D.R., "The Arrangement of the Three Cone Classes in the Living Human Eye" Nature 397, 520-522 (1999)