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StudyBioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026

Evidence That Cardiac Pulse Strains Retinal Vessels in and near the Optic Disc During Ocular Ductions.

Emanuil Parunakian, Atharva Shetye, Veronika Yehezkeli … Joseph L Demer

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OphthalmologyStudy

Heartbeat causes measurable stretching of retinal vessels near the optic disc.

Evidence That Cardiac Pulse Strains Retinal Vessels in and near the Optic Disc During Ocular Ductions.

Emanuil Parunakian … Joseph L Demer

Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026

Background

Ocular ductions deform the optic disc and peripapillary blood vessels, and deformations can be interpreted as mechanical strain.

Results

0.27%

to 0.36%

shows how much retinal vessels stretch with each heartbeat, well above measurement noise

n = 25 eyes

More results

Imaging was repeated in central, and horizontally (30° adduction/abduction) and vertically eccentric gazes (10° supraduction/infraduction).

Retinal vessels, optic disc, and fovea were segmented using custom-trained, deep learning-based models.

More results

Frame to frame vascular displacements were automatically determined using optical flow analysis, allowing computation of equivalent strain.

After adjustment for age and axial length, pulsatile maximum and minimum strain were influenced slightly by gaze direction, maximally for supraduction, whereas mean strain did not vary significantly with gaze.

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Conclusion

However, the interaction of pulse strain with gaze direction is unlikely to be a significant confound for investigations of strains associated with eye movements.

Post

Evidence That Cardiac Pulse Strains Retinal Vessels in and near the Optic Disc During Ocular Ductions.

Heartbeat causes measurable stretching of retinal vessels near the optic disc.

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