Higher-Order Wavefront Aberrations for Populations of Young Emmetropes and Myopes

Purpose: To test the hypothesis that human eyes have a central tendency to be free of higher-order aberrations by analyzing wavefront aberrations for two young populations of respectively emmetropic and myopic subjects. Methods: Both right and left eyes of 75 emmetropes and 196 myopes were measured for corneal wavefront aberration using a Humphrey corneal topographer and for the whole eye wavefront aberration using a WASCA wavefront sensor without pupil dilation. 35 Zernike aberration coefficients over a 6.0 mm pupil diameter were derived, and statistics of the higher-order terms (3rd to 5th orders) were tested. Results: When signed Zernike aberrations of the right and left eyes were averaged together for the emmetropes, three higher-order modes (j=6, 12 and 13) were significantly different from zero in both the cornea and the whole eye (P