Functional Assessment Core

SUMMARY/ABSTRACT - FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT CORE The Functional Assessment Core (FAC) provides access to expert personnel and equipment for non-invasively assessing ocular structure and visual function in living animals. The FAC enhances the research environment by making available state-of-the-art equipment as well as a full-time technician who can provide training in the use of instruments and make consistent measurements for longitudinal studies. The FAC fulfills the growing needs of investigators to characterize the phenotype of rodent models for retinal and other ocular diseases and evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic interventions. This Core also promotes pilot projects by providing technical help, which, because of current commitments or lack of experience, is often unavailable in individual laboratories. The Core is located in three designated and specifically designed light-tight procedure rooms within the Brehm Tower, specific-pathogen-free (SPF) animal housing facility, which is readily accessible to our vision scientists. Adjacent to these procedure rooms is a rodent housing room maintained specifically for dark adaptation/dark animal housing. The procedure rooms, totaling 428 sq. ft., are accessed via a corridor that is lit by dim red light and house a Diagnosys Espion E2 electrophysiology system and a Celeris electrophysiology system for electroretinogram (ERG) measurements; a Phoenix Research Laboratories Micron III retinal imaging device with green, red, and far-red filters for retinal fluorescent imaging and equipped with a slit-lamp for imaging the anterior eye. The Micron III system also includes a Meridian Merilas 532D laser for performing laser-induced choroidal neovascularization. The FAC also has a Bioptigen Spectral-Domain Ophthalmic Imaging System with an InVivoVue ClinicTM software suite for spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) imaging; a CerebralMechanics OptoMotry system for optokinetic analysis; a Neuroptics A-2000 animal pupillometer for measurement of pupillary responses to light stimulation; and an Icare Tonolab™ research rebound tonometer for measuring rodent ocular pressure. During the prior funding period, the FAC was extensively utilized by 6 participating investigators with another 4 being moderate users. In the next funding period, among the 28 participating investigators, 11 investigators (7 with NEI-R01 funding) anticipate using the Core to a moderate or extensive degree to facilitate their vision research.