Method of imaging multiple retinal structures

1. A method of imaging multiple retinal structures comprising:

direct light on a portion of the retina to achieve irradiance;

acquire a first image frame and register successive image frames of a portion of the retina from a first imaging channel, and simultaneously acquire and co-register second image frames of the portion of the retina from a second, different imaging channel;

divide the first image frame and each successive image frame into corresponding multiple strips, and cross-correlate each successive image frame strip with a corresponding first image frame strip to compensate for intra-frame distortion due to retinal movement during image acquisition, and apply these strip motions to the second image frames and co-register the second image strips;

re-divide the registered successive image frames into second strips, and conduct a second cross-correlation of each corresponding second strip, thereby filtering out any motion artifacts in the registered images and register the first images, and

combine the final first images and generate a composite image for the first imaging channel, and co-register and combine final second images and generate a composite image for the second imaging channel.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising simultaneously acquiring and co-registering third image frames of a portion of the retina from a third, different imaging channel; and combining final third images and generating a composite image thereon.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising controlling timing and intensity of light directed on the portion of the retina, such that light exposure on said portion is minimized.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the light is directed with a light source including a shutter, and the method further comprises controlling the shutter so that light is directed on the portion of the retina only during acquisition of images thereof.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the light source includes an acousto-optic modulator, and the method further comprises modulating the power of light directed on the portion of the retina, thereby achieving uniform retinal irradiance.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein images are acquired and registered with a scanning light microscope or scanning light ophthalmoscope.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein images are acquired and registered with an adaptive optics scanning light ophthalmoscope including a wavefront corrector.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first channel wavelength and the second channel wavelength are different.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the irradiance includes at least one of fluorescence, reflectance and scattering.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second correlation is initiated while additional second images are still being acquired.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second correlation is initiated after second images are acquired.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the composite images are displayed on a display device in real-time.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the composite image is a high signal-to-noise ratio image of structures from multiple retinal layers of a living animal.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the images of structures from multiple retinal layers of a living animal are obtained concurrently.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising comparing the cross-correlated first image strips with a threshold, and registering first image strips meeting the threshold.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein several second final composite images generated from co-registration separated by short temporal intervals are registered and combined to compensate for temporal variation in a lateral position offset between the first imaging channel and second imaging channel.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein a lateral position offset between images of the first and second imaging channels is recovered by tracking pupil position.