Weak correlation between the aberration dynamics of the human eye and the cardiopulmonary system.

It is fairly well established that the higher-order aberrations of the eye fluctuate over relatively short time periods, but as yet there is no conclusive evidence regarding the origin of these fluctuations. We measured the aberrations and the pulse pressure wave simultaneously for five subjects. The aberrations were measured by using a Shack-Hartmann sensor sampling at 21.2 Hz. We decomposed the aberration data into Zernike coefficients up to and including fifth order and also calculated the rms wave-front error. From the pulse data the heart rate variability signal was also derived. Coherence function analysis showed that for all subjects there was a weak correlation between many of the aberrations and the pulse and the derived heart rate variability. The pulse and the heart rate variability can account for only 11% +/- 2% and 20% +/- 2%, respectively, of the aberration dynamics.