Larin, Kirill V.2022-06-17December 22021-12December 2Portions of this document appear in: Zhang, H., Wu, C., Singh, M., Nair, A., Aglyamov, S. R., & Larin, K. V. (2019). Optical coherence elastography of cold cataract in porcine lens. In Journal of biomedical optics, 24(3), 036004; and in: Zhang, H., Singh, M., Nair, A., Larin, K. V., & Aglyamov, S. R. (2021, June). Elasticity Changes in the Crystalline Lens during Oxidative Damage and the Antioxidant Effect of Alpha-Lipoic Acid Measured by Optical Coherence Elastography. In Photonics (Vol. 8, No. 6, p. 207); and in: Zhang, H., Singh, M., Zvietcovich, F., Larin, K. V., & Aglyamov, S. R. (2022, January). Age-Related Changes in the Viscoelasticity of Rabbit Lens Characterized by Surface Wave Dispersion Analysis. In Quantum Electronics (Accepted).https://hdl.handle.net/10657/9285This dissertation reports on the application of optical coherence tomography (OCT) based elastography technique to assess the biomechanical properties of crystalline lens tissue noninvasively quantitatively. This work is summarized in four sections: 1) Assessing the Effects of Storage Medium on the Biomechanical Properties of Porcine Lens with Optical Coherence Elastography; 2) Optical Coherence Elastography of Cold Cataract in Porcine Lens; 3) The Mechanical Properties of Oxidative Cataract and the Potential Medical Treatment Measured by Optical Coherence Elastography; 4) Age-Related Changes in Rabbit Lens Viscoelasticity by Surface Wave Dispersion Analysis. These methods and applications are demonstrated with experiments on both tissue-mimicking phantoms (gelatin and agar) and lens (porcine and rabbit) ex vivo and in situ under different conditions (medium preservation, cold cataract, oxidative cataract, aging). This dissertation represents the frontier and emerging research area of noninvasive optical coherence elastography. It is expected to contribute to the field of quantitative biomechanical assessment with research and clinical-based applications.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. UH Libraries has secured permission to reproduce any and all previously published materials contained in the work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Crystalline LensOptical Coherence Elastography2022-06-17Thesisborn digital