Population distribution of wavefront aberrations in the peripheral human eye.

We present a population study of peripheral wavefront aberrations in large off-axis angles in terms of Zernike coefficients. A laboratory Hartmann-Shack sensor was used to assess the aberrations in 0 degrees, 20 degrees, and 30 degrees in the nasal visual field of 43 normal eyes. The elliptical pupil meant that the quantification could be done in different ways. The three approaches used were (1) over a circular aperture encircling the pupil, (2) over a stretched version of the elliptical pupil, and (3) over a circular aperture within the pupil (MATLAB conversion code given). Astigmatism (c(2)(2)) increased quadratically and coma (c(3)(1)) linearly with the horizontal viewing angle, whereas spherical aberration (c(4)(0)) decreased slightly toward the periphery. There was no correlation between defocus and angle, although some trends were found when the subjects were divided into groups depending on refractive error. When comparing results of different studies it has to be kept in mind that the coefficients differ depending on how the elliptical pupil is taken into consideration.