Measurement of strain and strain rate in embryonic chick heart using spectral domain optical coherence tomography

Abstract

It is important to measure embryonic heart myocardial wall strain and strain rate for understanding the mechanisms of embryonic heart development. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can provide depth resolved images with high spatial and temporal resolution, which makes it have the potential to reveal the complex myocardial activity in the early stage embryonic heart. We develop a novel method to measure strain in embryonic chick heart based on spectral domain OCT images and subsequent image processing. We perform 4D(x,y,z,t) scanning on the outflow tract (OFT) of chick embryonic hearts in HH18 stage (~3 days of incubation). Only one image sequence acquired at the special position is selected based on the Doppler blood flow information where the probe beam penetrates through the OFT perpendicularly. For each image of the selected sequence, the cross-section of the myocardial wall can be approximated as an annulus. The OFT is segmented with a semi-automatic boundary detection algorithm, thus the area and mean circumference of the annular myocardial wall can be achieved. The myocardial wall thickness was calculated using the area divided by the mean circumference, and then the strain was obtained. The results demonstrate that OCT can be a useful tool to describe the biomechanical characteristics of the embryonic heart.