Abstract
The changes in the human crystalline lens shape and its internal structure during accommodation and with aging are a fundamental component of the dynamic mechanism of accommodation and presbyopia, the loss of near vision with age. A better understanding of the crystalline lens changes during accommodation will help in developing new treatments to correct for presbyopia. The goal of this dissertation is to design and develop an imaging system to study the dynamic changes in lens shape during accommodative response. An imaging system based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) was developed with long axial range, high axial and lateral resolution and high speed for in vivo imaging the anterior segment along its entire length at video-rate. A slit-lamp mounted optical delivery scanning device for the extended depth SD-OCT system was developed. The delivery system was combined with a custom made unit that provides accommodation and disaccommodation step stimuli. A method to correct for the distortions of the OCT images was also developed that provides corrected two dimensional biometric data at different accommodative states.