Mapping the human parafoveal vascular network to understand flow variability in capillaries

Capillary flow is known to be non-homogenous between vessels and variable over time, for reasons that are poorly understood. The local properties of individual vessels have been shown to have limited explanatory power in this regard. This exploratory study investigates the association of network-level properties such as vessel depth, branch order, and distance from the feeding arteriole with capillary flow. Detailed network connectivity analysis was undertaken in 3 healthy young subjects using flood-illuminated adaptive optics retinal imaging, with axial depth of vessels determined via optical coherence tomography angiography. Forty-one out of 70 vessels studied were of terminal capillary type, i.e. fed from an arterial junction and drained by a venous junction. Approximately half of vessel junctions were amenable to fitting with a model of relative branch diameters, with only a few adhering to Murray’s Law. A key parameter of the model (the junction exponent) was found to be inversely related to the average velocity (r = -0.59, p = 0.015) and trough velocity (r = -0.67, p = 0.004) in downstream vessels. Aspects of cellular flow, such as the minimum velocity, were also moderately correlated (r = 0.46, p = 0.009) with distance to the upstream feeding arteriole. Overall, this study shows that capillary network topology contributes significantly to the flow variability in retinal capillaries in human eyes. Understanding the heterogeneity in capillary flow is an important first step before pathological flow states can be properly understood. These results show that flow within capillary vessels is not affected by vessel depths but significantly influenced by the upstream feeder distance as well as the downstream vessel junction exponents, but there remains much to be uncovered regarding healthy capillary flow.