Back

Adaptive Optics Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Ophthalmoscopy for Single-Cell-Resolved In Vivo Metabolic and Structural Imaging of the Human Retinal Pigment Epithelium

Liu, R.; Wang, X.; Corradetti, G.; Soylu, C.; Ferrington, D.; Sadda, S. R.; Zhang, Y.

2026-02-09 ophthalmology
10.64898/2026.02.07.26345814 medRxiv
Show abstract

Fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscopy permits in vivo assessment of retinal metabolism but has remained limited by insufficient cellular resolution in the human eye. Here we present adaptive optics-enhanced fluorescence lifetime imaging ophthalmoscopy (AOFLIO), a method for single-cell-resolved, in vivo structural and metabolic imaging of the human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Through real-time correction of ocular wavefront aberrations, precisely synchronized adaptive optics reflectance and lifetime image acquisition via a phase-locked loop-based timing architecture, and sub-pixel photon registration that localizes individual autofluorescence photons with high spatial precision, AOFLIO directly resolves the RPE cell mosaic and measures autofluorescence decay using the same photons, enabling direct structural-functional correlation at the single-cell level. We demonstrate single-cell RPE lifetime mapping in healthy subjects and reveal altered metabolic signatures and fine characterization of RPE metabolic in age-related macular degeneration. AOFLIO establishes a platform for cellular-scale metabolic imaging in the living human eye.

Matching journals

The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
Nature Communications
○ 5641 papers in training set
Top 11%
15.4%
Similar papers in this journal
2
Ophthalmology Science
○ 22 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
10.0%
Similar papers in this journal
3
eLife
● 5828 papers in training set
Top 12%
9.1%
Similar papers in this journal
4
Investigative Opthalmology & Visual Science
● 37 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
8.0%
Similar papers in this journal
5
Communications Biology
○ 993 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
8.0%
Similar papers in this journal
50% of probability mass above
6
Nature Methods
○ 385 papers in training set
Top 1%
6.9%
7
Eye
○ 11 papers in training set
Top 0.2%
3.3%
8
Light: Science & Applications
○ 16 papers in training set
Top 0.1%
2.5%
9
Scientific Reports
○ 3612 papers in training set
Top 41%
2.4%
10
Science Advances
● 1243 papers in training set
Top 16%
2.2%
11
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
● 2444 papers in training set
Top 23%
2.2%
12
JCI Insight
● 277 papers in training set
Top 3%
2.2%
13
Advanced Science
○ 286 papers in training set
Top 4%
1.8%
14
British Journal of Cancer
○ 49 papers in training set
Top 0.7%
1.8%
15
Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
● 25 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
1.5%
16
Translational Vision Science & Technology
● 39 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
1.5%
17
ACS Nano
● 113 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.5%
18
Clinical and Translational Science
○ 22 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
1.4%
19
Optica
● 27 papers in training set
Top 0.2%
1.1%
20
Brain
◐ 168 papers in training set
Top 3%
0.9%
21
Neurophotonics
● 42 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
0.9%
22
PLOS ONE
● 5266 papers in training set
Top 58%
0.9%
23
Nature Biomedical Engineering
○ 47 papers in training set
Top 2%
0.6%
24
Cell Reports Methods
○ 165 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.6%
25
npj Digital Medicine
○ 118 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.6%

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.