Optic Nerve Head Strain in Non-glaucoma Subjects

Persons who do not have glaucoma will have pictures taken of the optic nerve with a standard camera before and 2 weeks after starting to take a daily glaucoma eye drop to lower eye pressure. These data will be used to compare to the same procedure performed with glaucoma patients to study how glaucoma injures the eye.

The present proposal seeks to measure biomechanical strains in age-matched control subjects who do not have Open-angle Glaucoma (OAG), using the same non-invasive imaging methods as in the above programs. This is necessary as even undamaged OAG eyes may have different biomechanical properties at baseline than do non-OAG eyes. While there are some limited methods to test strains in control eyes, to compare normal to OAG responses robustly, the same methods of changing intra-ocular pressure (IOP) must be applied-namely to lower IOP by delivery of FDA-approved agent, latanoprost, as has been done in the investigator's OAG subjects. The method of measuring strain requires images taken at two different IOP levels.