Seeing the blood flow that helps us see
Ken Tichauer
Both Arno Bouwens, in the lab of Prof. Theo Lasser at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, and Richard Hainl, in the lab of Prof. Christoph Hitzenberger at the Medical University of Vienna, presented some intriguing new approaches of using optical coherence microscopy to measure mean blood flow in blood vessels in mouse brain and retina, respectively. Such non-invasive approaches could have immediate clinical impact on the early diagnosis and management of glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and other retina related pathologies. Arno’s approach offers exquisite resolution in later and axial dimensions down to 400 microns, while Richard’s approach enables the direction of the blood flow to be quantified. I strongly encourage you to read more about their excellent work.3,4
1 Kishimoto, J. et al. 3D ultrasound system to investigate intraventricular hemorrhage in preterm neonates. Phys Med Biol 58, 7513-7526, doi:10.1088/0031-9155/58/21/7513 (2013).
2 Rice, W. L. & Kumar, A. T. Preclinical whole body time domain fluorescence lifetime multiplexing of fluorescent proteins. J Biomed Opt 19, 46005, doi:10.1117/1.JBO.19.4.046005 (2014).
3 Bouwens, A., Bolmont, T., Szlag, D., Berclaz, C. & Lasser, T. Quantitative cerebral blood flow imaging with extended-focus optical coherence microscopy. Optics letters 39, 37-40, doi:10.1364/OL.39.000037 (2014).
4 Trasischker, W. et al. In vitro and in vivo three-dimensional velocity vector measurement by three-beam spectral-domain Doppler optical coherence tomography. J Biomed Opt 18, 116010, doi:10.1117/1.JBO.18.11.116010 (2013).
