Guang Li1,
Jeffrey W. Kiel2, Damon P. Cardenas3, De La Garza H.
Bryan4, Timothy O. Duong4
1Department
of Radiology, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX,
United States; 2Department of Ophthalmology, UT Health Science
Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States; 3Department
of Biomedical Engineering, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, San
Antonio, TX, United States; 4Research Imaging Institute, UT Health
Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, United States
Reactive hyperemia and its modulation by varying metabolic demands have not been studied in the retina. We investigated the reactive hyperemia and hemodynamic reserve in the rat retina by measuring blood flow and oxygenation under dark, constant light and flicker. Our results showed that changes in metabolic rate by light conditions did not affect the reactive hyperemia likley because of the small BF reserve in the retinal circulation, suggesting that metabolic autoregulation in the retina is less able to compensate for increased metabolism.