Notes:

It is an honor to represent the School of Optometry today to describe recent advances in our understanding of the optical system of the human eye, its imperfections, and how those imperfections might be eliminated by a new generation of corrective lenses.

Research at the School of Optometry covers a broad array of topics in the basic visual sciences. The purpose of this research is to understand how the eye is built, how it grows, and how it works as a sensory organ to provide us with the gift of sight. To do this systematically, we subdivide the visual system into 3 parts: the optical system that forms an image of the world onto the retina, the neural networks in the retina which convert light into neural messages for transmission over the optic nerve to the brain, and the visual centers in the brain which provide us with conscious visual perception and sub-conscious control over our muscles for making appropriate responses to visual stimuli. Scientific progress in any of these three broad areas of research are then applied by teams of clinical scientists and basic scientists to solve outstanding clinical problems, which ultimately leads to improved vision care for the public by optometric practitioners.

Today I am going to tell you about an exciting, new approach to the study of the eye as an image-forming device which is taking shape here at Indiana University. This apporach is based on new technology for measuring and correcting the optical defects of the eye with unprecidented accuracy and resolution. These new methods utilize state-of-the-art, adaptive-optical components from astronomy to make complex, computer-controlled lenses for correcting the highly irregular imperfections of the human eye. These lenses have the potential to raise the quality of vision to unprecedented heights, constrained only by the wave nature of light and by the neural architecture of the sensory retina. If successful, this research will provide visual and clinical scientists with an opportunity to study the visual process, and human observers will have an opportunity to experience the visual world, in a way never before possible - unencumbered by the optical imperfections of the eye.