Moore Bret A, Yoo Innfarn, Tyrrell Luke P, Benes Bedrich, Fernandez-Juricic Esteban
Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University , West Lafayette, IN , USA.
Department of Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University , West Lafayette, IN , USA.
PeerJ. 2016 Apr 11;4:e1785. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1785. eCollection 2016.
The fovea is one of the most studied retinal specializations in vertebrates, which consists of an invagination of the retinal tissue with high packing of cone photoreceptors, leading to high visual resolution. Between species, foveae differ morphologically in the depth and width of the foveal pit and the steepness of the foveal walls, which could influence visual perception. However, there is no standardized methodology to measure the contour of the foveal pit across species. We present here FOVEA, a program for the quantification of foveal parameters (width, depth, slope of foveal pit) using images from histological cross-sections or optical coherence tomography (OCT). FOVEA is based on a new algorithm to detect the inner retina contour based on the color variation of the image. We evaluated FOVEA by comparing the fovea morphology of two Passerine birds based on histological cross-sections and its performance with data from previously published OCT images. FOVEA detected differences between species and its output was not significantly different from previous estimates using OCT software. FOVEA can be used for comparative studies to better understand the evolution of the fovea morphology in vertebrates as well as for diagnostic purposes in veterinary pathology. FOVEA is freely available for academic use and can be downloaded at: http://estebanfj.bio.purdue.edu/fovea.
中央凹是脊椎动物中研究最多的视网膜特化结构之一，它由视网膜组织内陷形成，其中视锥光感受器高度密集，从而实现高视觉分辨率。不同物种之间，中央凹在中央凹坑的深度和宽度以及中央凹壁的陡峭程度等形态上存在差异，这可能会影响视觉感知。然而，目前尚无跨物种测量中央凹坑轮廓的标准化方法。我们在此介绍FOVEA，这是一个用于使用组织学横截面图像或光学相干断层扫描（OCT）图像量化中央凹参数（宽度、深度、中央凹坑斜率）的程序。FOVEA基于一种新算法，该算法根据图像的颜色变化检测视网膜内层轮廓。我们通过比较两种雀形目鸟类基于组织学横截面的中央凹形态以及其与先前发表的OCT图像数据的性能来评估FOVEA。FOVEA检测到了物种之间的差异，其输出与使用OCT软件的先前估计值没有显著差异。FOVEA可用于比较研究，以更好地了解脊椎动物中央凹形态的进化，以及用于兽医病理学的诊断目的。FOVEA可供学术免费使用，可在以下网址下载：http://estebanfj.bio.purdue.edu/fovea 。
