Computer methods for sampling, reconstruction, display and analysis of retinal whole mounts

Abstract

We are quantifying the distribution of photoreceptors and ganglion cells in human retina with the goal of establishing a reliable anatomical database which may be compared to information about visual function. We required a representation of retinal cell distributions which facilitated collection, analysis, and display of morphometric data from the entire retina of a large number of eyes. We report computer methods to (1) reconstruct the original retinal sphere from a three-piece whole mount preparation; (2) sample the retina in a manner which allowed description of approximately radially symmetrical cell distributions and avoided both undersampling (which produces interpolation artifacts) and oversampling (which wastes time); (3) interpolate between data points in order to produce plots of cell density along arbitrary meridians and maps of average cell density from several eyes; (4) specify locations on the retinal surface using a spherical coordinate system with its primary axis through the fovea; and (5) produce color-coded maps of cell distributions in a standard perimetric projection.