Synthetic reconstruction of dynamic blood flow in cortical arteries using optical coherence tomography for the evaluation of vessel compliance

Abstract

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) has recently been used to produce 3D angiography of microvasculature in the rodent brain in-vivo and blood flow maps of large vessels. Key enabling developments were novel algorithms for detecting Doppler shifts produced by moving scatterers and new scanning protocols tailored to increase sensitivity to small flow speeds. These progresses were pushed by the need for a non invasive imaging modality to monitor quantitative blood flow at a higher resolution and a greater depth than could be achieved by other means. The rationale for this work originates from new hypotheses regarding the role of blood regulation in neurodegenerative diseases and from current investigations of animal models of vascular degeneration. In this work we demonstrate the synthetic reconstruction of dynamic blood flow in mice over the course of a single cardiac cycle in an 800μm wide by ~ 3mm deep B-Frame slice with a lateral resolution of 10μm and a depth resolution of 7μm. Images were taken using a cranial window over the exposed parietal bone of mice skull. Electrocardiography (ECG) recordings were co registered with the OCT A lines at high temporal resolution. QRS peak detection was then used to locate the time value of each A-line in the cardiac cycle and to reconstruct a synthetic temporal frame over one cardiac cycle. Doppler speed in this cardiac cycle was used to measure temporal variations of flow inside arteries and of their area. Three dimensional volume scans yielded measurements of quantitative blood flow on the same arteries. Using these informations a measure of compliance could be established. Comparing measures between atherosclerotic (ATX) and wild type (WT) mice revealed higher blood flow in WT mice, suggested lower systemic compliance in the ATX group but higher compliance of cerebral vasculature on these mice. These results are consistent with expectations showing that OCT is a potential tool for in-vivo arterial compliance evaluation.