Diabetic Retinopathy: Pericyte Loss & Microvascular Damage

This simulator renders a patch of the retinal capillary plexus in 3D and drives it through the actual cellular sequence of diabetic microvascular damage: hyperglycemia-dependent pericyte dropout, loss of structural support leading to microaneurysm formation and capillary non-perfusion, and hypoxia-driven VEGF signalling that ultimately triggers neovascularization. Duration of exposure and HbA1c both feed a first-order pericyte survival model, live readouts track pericyte coverage, ischemic capillary fraction, microaneurysm count and relative VEGF, and the stage label follows the same non-perfusion burden that ophthalmologists use to grade NPDR versus PDR on fluorescein angiography.