Purpose: Accommodation mainly affects the lens, a structure of the eyeball that degrades with age. The aim of this work was to study the morphological changes of different ocular structures during accommodation, both in the anterior pole and the posterior pole, which may also be involved in the accommodation process.
Methods: The study will be carried out by stimulating accommodation through lenses of -1.00, -3.00 and -5.00 D starting from the spherical equivalent (M) of each participant in different age groups, from 18 to 66 years. To obtain the M value, aberrometry was achieved, and retinal optical coherence tomography and anterior pole tomography were performed to evaluate the possible structural modifications (central and peripheral), while accommodation was progressively stimulated.
Results: It showed that as the accommodative demand increased, morphological changes were produced in retinal thickness, both in the central and peripheral retina, in all age groups. A thinning of the retina was observed in the central 3 mm, while significant progressive thickening was observed closer to the periphery (up to 6 mm from the fovea) as the required accommodative power increased. A decrease in the anterior chamber depth (ACD) and anterior chamber volume (ACV) was observed with increasing lens power.
Conclusion: Structural changes were observed in the central and peripheral retina, as well as in the ACD and ACV, while progressively greater accommodation was stimulated, showing that these structures were modified in the accommodation process even in advanced presbyopes.
Keywords: Accommodation; aberrometry; anterior chamber; optical coherence tomography; retina.