Machine learning increases resolution of eye imaging technology

The results appear in a paper published online on August 19 in the journal Nature Photonics. "An historic issue with OCT is that the depth resolution is typically several times better than the lateral resolution," said Joseph Izatt, the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Professor of Engineering at Duke. "If the layers of imaged tissues happen to be horizontal, then they're well defined in the scan. But to extend the full power of OCT for live imaging of tissues throughout the body, a method for overcoming the tradeoff between lateral resolution and depth of imaging was needed." OCT is an imaging technology analogous to ultrasound that uses light rather than soundwaves. A probe shoots a beam of light into a tissue and, based on the delays of the light waves as they bounce back, determines the boundaries of the features within.