Principles of OCTA and Applications in Clinical Neurology

Abstract

Purpose of review: The article reviews the recent findings on the use of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in neurology.

Recent findings: OCTA is a new addition to the powerful and complementary technology of the OCT. Due to its noninvasiveness, and reproducibility, it is possible to obtain high-resolution 3D images of the vessels of the human eye. As the vessels of the retina with the presence of endothelial cell's tight junctions resemble the brain vessels, it was hypothesized that the imaging of the retinal vessels might bring insight into brain vessels. OCTA has been effectively used to predict retinal vessel abnormalities in dementia, demyelization, optic disc neuropathies, and inherited degenerative diseases. Most common findings were decrease of vascular density and flow and an increase of avascular zones. Although OCTA is a relative new technology, recent studies show that it can be successfully applied in neurology.

Keywords: Neuroscience; OCT angiography; OCT-A; OCTA review; Optical coherence tomography angiography,; Sclerosis multiplex.

Fig. 1

a Optical coherence angiography of a healthy retina. 1. Scan of a superficial layers. 2. Intermediate retinal plexus. 3. Deep retinal plexus. 4. Choroid. 5. Color fundus photo with a red frame corresponding to the area on an OCTA image. b 1. OCT B-scans of the retina. 2. B-scan with color coded to indicate the blood flow. c Images of an ultra-wide field fluorescein angiography, the size of an OCTA image corresponds to the red frame