Multimodal Retinal Imaging Techniques

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fluorescein angiography (FA) were performed as previously described (Buccarello et al., 2017 (link)), taking advantage of the Micron IV instrument (Phoenix Research Laboratories, Pleasanton, CA, United States). Briefly, after anesthesia, mydriasis was induced by administering a drop of tropicamide 0.5% (Visumidriatic, Tibilux Pharma, Milan, Italy) in each eye. OCT images were acquired by performing a circular scan of 550 μm of diameter around the optic nerve head. Both eyes were examined, and the results were averaged. The segmentation of retinal layers was performed using Insight software (Phoenix Research Laboratories, Pleasanton, CA, United States), OCT was followed by the FA study. A solution of 1% fluorescein (5 ml/kg Monico S.p.A., Venezia, Italy) was administered by a single intraperitoneal injection (100 μL). For each animal, the images of central and peripheral retinal vasculature were acquired.