Ávila, F.J.; del Barco, Ó.; Marcellán, M.C.; Remón, L. A Comprehensive Study on Elasticity and Viscosity in Biomechanics and Optical Properties of the Living Human Cornea. Photonics2024, 11, 524.
Ávila, F.J.; del Barco, Ó.; Marcellán, M.C.; Remón, L. A Comprehensive Study on Elasticity and Viscosity in Biomechanics and Optical Properties of the Living Human Cornea. Photonics 2024, 11, 524.
Ávila, F.J.; del Barco, Ó.; Marcellán, M.C.; Remón, L. A Comprehensive Study on Elasticity and Viscosity in Biomechanics and Optical Properties of the Living Human Cornea. Photonics2024, 11, 524.
Ávila, F.J.; del Barco, Ó.; Marcellán, M.C.; Remón, L. A Comprehensive Study on Elasticity and Viscosity in Biomechanics and Optical Properties of the Living Human Cornea. Photonics 2024, 11, 524.
Abstract
Corneal biomechanics is a hot topic in ophthalmology. The biomechanical properties of the cornea (BMPs) have important implications in the management and diagnosis of corneal diseases such as ectasia and keratoconus. In addition, the characterization of BMPs is crucial to model the predictability of a corneal surgery intervention, the outcomes of refractive surgery or follow-up of corneal diseases. The biomechanical behavior of the cornea is governed by viscoelastic properties that allow, among other structural implications, the damping of excess of intraocular pressure and reduce damage to the optic nerve. Currently, the most versatile and complete methods to measure corneal viscoelasticity are based on air-puff corneal applanation. However, those methods lack the ability to directly measure corneal viscosity. The aim of this work is to propose a new methodology based on the analysis of corneal air-puff measurements through the Standard Linear Solid model (SLSM) to provide analytical expressions to separately calculate the elastic and time-dependent (corneal retardation time and viscosity) properties. The results shown the mean values of elasticity (E), viscosity (Ƞ) and corneal retardation time (τ) in a sample of 200 young and healthy subjects. The influence of elasticity and viscosity on viscoelasticity, high-order corneal aberrations and optical transparency is investigated. Finally, the SLSM fed back from experimental E and Ƞ values was employed to compare the creep-relaxation response between normal, an ocular hypertension patient and Ortho-K user.
Keywords
Corneal biomechanics; Standard linear solid model; Corneal viscoelasticity; Corneal elasticity; Corneal viscosity; Corneal retardation time; Ccular hypertension; Ortho-K
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Biophysics
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
