Near-infrared polarimetric imaging and changes associated with normative aging.

With aging, the human retina undergoes cell death and additional structural changes that can increase scattered light. We quantified the effect of normative aging on multiply scattered light returning from the human fundus. As expected, there was an increase of multiply scattered light associated with aging, and this is consistent with the histological changes that occur in the fundus of individuals before developing age-related macular degeneration. This increase in scattered light with aging cannot be attributed to retinal reflectivity, anterior segment scatter, or pupil diameter.