Abstract
Higher-order aberrations (HOAs) and intraocular scatter lead to the degradation of image quality on the retina, and consequently deteriorate subjective visual performance. In this article, we modified an adaptive optics double-pass system to combine objective and subjective visual testing capabilities. Employing the modified DP system, we investigated the effects of HOAs and intraocular scatter on contrast sensitivity. Contrast sensitivity measurements were performed with HOAs either retained or corrected by adaptive optics, and with scatter either remaining at the natural eye-induced level or further enhanced by a set of three different scatter filters. Contrast sensitivity was found to be worse when HOAs were uncorrected or scatter increased. Quantitative analysis indicated that the joint effect of HOAs and scatter on contrast sensitivity was not a simple summation of each contributing factor, suggesting a potential compensatory mechanism between HOAs and intraocular scatter on contrast sensitivity.
Highlights
Higher-order aberrations (HOAs) and intraocular scatter lead to the degradation of image quality on the retina, and deteriorate subjective visual performance
Contrast sensitivity (CS) was measured with HOAs either retained or corrected, and with scatter either remaining at the natural eye-induced level or further enhanced by one of a set of three different scatter filters, and compared across different optical conditions
Blue circles stand for results obtained without adaptive optics (AO) correction; red squares stand for results obtained with AO correction of HOAs
Summary
Higher-order aberrations (HOAs) and intraocular scatter lead to the degradation of image quality on the retina, and deteriorate subjective visual performance. Contrast sensitivity (CS) proved to be clinically useful for assessing the subjective visual performance [1, 2]. It is valuable to assess the effect of HOAs and intraocular scatter on CS to aid in better understanding of the visual performance. A number of investigations have explored the effect of HOAs on CS [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Most of them discovered a marked improvement in CS with HOAs correction. Our recent study [8] showed that AO correction of HOAs improved CS at all spatial frequencies for all subjects. It’s reasonable to speculate a negative effect of HOAs on CS
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