Abstract
As we grow older, we lose our ability to accommodate, or focus from far to near, in a condition called presbyopia. Presbyopia is an issue in our everyday life, complicating routine tasks such as using smartphones or reading street signs while driving. To develop effective therapies to treat presbyopia, we need to understand the changes in the eye that occur with age. We need to be able to observe the eye in vivo as accommodation occurs. The present dissertation focuses on the part of the eye responsible for starting the mechanics of accommodation, the ciliary muscle. Imaging of the muscle in vivo has been limited by current imaging technology, which cannot provide the speed, resolution, contrast needed to visualize the muscle during accommodation. To address the technological gap, an Optical Coherence Tomography system for imaging the ciliary muscle was developed and, in turn, computational tools needed to process the accommodative muscle data sets produced by the new system. The system and tools were verified on sample data sets, demonstrating the successful implementation of an imaging and computational platform which can be used to determine changes in the ciliary muscle with age in future studies.