Fractal analysis of normal human retinal blood vessels
Barry R. Masters
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology,
Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences,
4301 Jones Bridge Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA
The pattern of retinal blood vessels in the retinal circulation of the human eye is a wonderful and interesting branching network. Fractals provide a framework for the space filling description of many complex biological patterns [1]. Fractals or fractal objects are self-similar structures or scale invariant. The fractal dimension does not uniquely characterize the shape or the form of the fractal object. Applications of fractal analysis to vascular trees include the study of retinal development, and pathological growth of blood vessels. This investigation concentrated on the determination of the fractal dimension of the pattern of retinal blood vessels in the normal human eye. Several methods were used to obtain the fractal dimension: box counting, mass-radius, and two-point correlations. The value of the fractal dimension of the normal human retinal circulation was found to be 1.70 +/- 0.02 (N=10). This value is consistent with a Laplacian fractal.