A method to determine the mechanical properties of the retina based on an experiment in vivo.

A method is proposed to determine the mechanical properties of retina based on in vivo experiments and numerical simulations. First, saline water was injected into the anterior chamber of the right eye of a cat to cause acute high intraocular pressure. After the eye was scanned using optical coherence tomography under different acute high intraocular pressures, the images of the retina in vivo were obtained and the thickness of the retina was calculated. Then, the three-dimensional structure of the optic nerve head including the retina and the choroid were reconstructed using image processing technology. Three different material models for the retina and the choroid were taken and the finite element models of the optic nerve head were constructed. Finally, an inverse method was proposed to determine the parameters of a constitutive model of the retina and of the choroid simultaneously. The results showed that the deformation of the retina can be properly simulated taking into consideration the nonlinear elastic properties of the retina and of the choroid.