Approved Research

Analyzing Disorders That Cause Optic Nerve Head Swelling and Vision Loss

Lay summary

Neurologic and systemic diseases contribute to or cause swelling of the optic nerve head and vision loss. These disorders include optic neuritis related to multiple sclerosis, papilledema due to idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) and cardiovascular risk factor associated non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). Visual field testing, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fundus photos are used to diagnose, monitor, and measure the outcome and effects of therapies. Each disorder appears to have distinct features of ONH swelling, injury, vision loss, and recovery. We are developing artificial intelligence (AI) methods to uncover these features. We hypothesis that AI will identify specific photographic or OCT or both features that will be biomarkers that change over time due to reflect the natural history, response to therapy, and/or predict swelling or visual outcome. We suggest that these ONH disorders will be distinguishable based on these features and improve diagnostic capabilities.