What is it about?
We studied the oxygen levels of the small blood vessels found on the outside of the eye. We found that the bulbar conjunctival vessels (the ones that make your eye go red when you are tired, emotional, or suffering from an allergy) actually absorb oxygen from the ambient air. As far as we are aware, these are the only blood vessels outside of the lungs to actually absorb oxygen, rather than dish it out!
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Why is it important?
This provides a new way of studying how the smallest blood vessels in our body supply oxygen to tissue. This technique could provide insights into how disease such as diabetes and sickle-cell anemia develop. Also, its pretty cool to say that in a small sense... you breathe through your eyes!
Perspectives
This was a fun project to work on, and we discovered some very interesting oxygen diffusion dynamics. I presented this work at the 2016 Oximetry Workshop in Glasgow, which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg-lx8SqtDY
Mr Lewis E MacKenzie
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: In vivo oximetry of human bulbar conjunctival and episcleral microvasculature using snapshot multispectral imaging, Experimental Eye Research, August 2016, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.exer.2016.06.008.
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