Purpose: A reference atlas of optic nerve (ON) retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons could facilitate studies of neuro-ophthalmic diseases by detecting subtle RGC axonal changes. Here we construct an RGC axonal atlas for normotensive eyes in Brown Norway rats, widely used in glaucoma research, and also develop/evaluate several novel metrics of axonal damage in hypertensive eyes.
Methods: Light micrographs of entire ON cross-sections from hypertensive and normotensive eyes were processed through a deep learning-based algorithm, AxoNet2.