Automatic Cone Photoreceptor Localisation in Healthy and Stargardt Afflicted Retinas Using Deep Learning. Sci Rep 2018 May 21;8(1):7911
Date
05/23/2018Pubmed ID
29784939Pubmed Central ID
PMC5962538DOI
10.1038/s41598-018-26350-3Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85047432793 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 48 CitationsAbstract
We present a robust deep learning framework for the automatic localisation of cone photoreceptor cells in Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscope (AOSLO) split-detection images. Monitoring cone photoreceptors with AOSLO imaging grants an excellent view into retinal structure and health, provides new perspectives into well known pathologies, and allows clinicians to monitor the effectiveness of experimental treatments. The MultiDimensional Recurrent Neural Network (MDRNN) approach developed in this paper is the first method capable of reliably and automatically identifying cones in both healthy retinas and retinas afflicted with Stargardt disease. Therefore, it represents a leap forward in the computational image processing of AOSLO images, and can provide clinical support in on-going longitudinal studies of disease progression and therapy. We validate our method using images from healthy subjects and subjects with the inherited retinal pathology Stargardt disease, which significantly alters image quality and cone density. We conduct a thorough comparison of our method with current state-of-the-art methods, and demonstrate that the proposed approach is both more accurate and appreciably faster in localizing cones. As further validation to the method's robustness, we demonstrate it can be successfully applied to images of retinas with pathologies not present in the training data: achromatopsia, and retinitis pigmentosa.
Author List
Davidson B, Kalitzeos A, Carroll J, Dubra A, Ourselin S, Michaelides M, Bergeles CAuthor
Joseph J. Carroll PhD Director, Professor in the Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
AlgorithmsCase-Control Studies
Humans
Macular Degeneration
Retina
Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells
Visual Acuity
