Adaptive Optics for the Human Eye

Aberrations limit the optical quality of the normal human eye, particularly when the pupil is large. These aberrations reduce the eye's contrast sensitivity to high spatial frequencies in the visual environment. They also limit the resolution of cameras designed to image the living human retina, a critical tool in the diagnosis and treatment of retinal disease. The eye's aberrations generally prohibit imaging structures in the living retina the size of single cells. Though it is possible to correct defocus and astigmatism with spectacle lenses, additional aberrations such as coma, spherical, and higher order aberrations remain. Moreover, the pattern of aberrations is highly variable from eye to eye, so that each eye must be independently corrected.