Visualizing Real Time Vasomotion in vivo Using Optical Coherence Tomography.

Abuhajar, Suhir (2012) Visualizing Real Time Vasomotion in vivo Using Optical Coherence Tomography. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

As blood vessel imaging techniques facilitate the fundamental understanding in vascular performance diagnosis and biomedical research improvement, we aimed to visualize and understand the blood vessels dynamics under human skin and their underlying mechanisms in real time. In this study, a noninvasive imaging system was selected to provide an investigation of the real time oscillation of blood vessels in vivo, using Spectral Radar Optical Coherence Tomography (SROCT). This main goal was achieved by evaluating the precision and confidence in recorded data by using a phantom made of Intralipid (IL) to mimic the physical properties of the skin. Then, we successfully managed to visualize for the first time the vasomotion under human skin using MatLab Image Processing Toolbox. After that, we explored mathematically the cyclic variations of the vascular area obtained from the images for a cohort of six participants. The Fourier and wavelet transforms were applied to identify the characteristic frequencies related to the oscillations in vascular cross sectional area. Finally, we investigated dynamical aspects of vasomotion, in response to temperature change, by using a Melcor Thermoelectric Temperature Controller (MTTC) to produce local heating in conjunction with Spectral Radar Optical Coherence Tomography (SROCT).