In vivo imaging of the human rod photoreceptor mosaic

Although single cone receptors have been imaged in the living human eye, there has been no observation of rods in vivo. Using an adaptive optics (AO) ophthalmoscope and post processing, evidence of rod mosaic was observed at 5° and 10° eccentricities in the horizontal, temporal retina. For 4 normal human subjects, small structures were observed in between the larger cones, and were observed repeatedly at the same locations on different days and with varying wavelengths. Image analysis gave spacings that agree well with rod measurements from histological data.