ARVO LIVE: AI revolution in ophthalmology

Ophthalmology Times® talked with AnnMarie Hipsley, DPT, PhD, about 3D finite element model used to understand more about the biomechanics of accommodation and dis-accommodation as it relates to functions for visual function as well as aqueous hydrodynamics at this year's ARVO meeting.

Video transcript

Editor’s note: Transcript lightly edited for clarity.

AnnMarie Hipsley, DPT, PhD:

My name is Dr. AnnMarie Hipsley, and we are here in sunny New Orleans at the 2023 ARVO meeting. I am founder of ACE vision group. I'd like to thank my colleagues, Dr. Dan Goldberg and Laurent Sabatier for their efforts in building the Virtual Eye Simulation Analyzer. [We're] presenting a pair of posters with digital twins of a 3D finite element model to understand more about the biomechanics of accommodation and dis-accommodation as it relates to functions for visual function as well as aqueous hydrodynamics.

So this is a very unique model in a virtual ecosystem, where we've been able to match material properties, physics in a young and an old eye, and now, we are experimenting and simulating these to learn more about problems like presbyopia and ocular hypertension. So, these models don't exist yet, and they allow us to ask very interesting "what if" questions, and experiment with those things in virtual reality that we can't do in real life. So we think that this AI approach in the age of digital health is a very proactive way to study and learn about normal to patho-physiological progressions.

We can start to really apply these things to tools that we have in the field to treat things that we still find elusive, such as progressive presbyopia, or ocular hypertension, glaucoma, etiologies, which we don't understand, and we need more understanding. So looking at these things in 3D space, very exciting. We validate this model, and we're getting ready to do some virtual human clinical trials through this virtual system, and we're just really excited to be on the brink of the AI revolution in ophthalmology.