A Mesh-Based Monte Carlo Study for Investigating Structural and Functional Imaging of Brain Tissue Using Optical Coherence Tomography

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can obtain high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) structural images of biological tissues, and spectroscopic OCT, which is one of the functional extensions of OCT, can also quantify chromophores of tissues. Due to its unique features, OCT has been increasingly used for brain imaging. To support the development of the simulation and analysis tools on which OCT-based brain imaging depends, a model of mesh-based Monte Carlo for OCT (MMC-OCT) is presented in this work to study OCT signals reflecting the structural and functional activities of brain tissue. In addition, an approach to improve the quantitative accuracy of chromophores in tissue is proposed and validated by MMC-OCT simulations. Specifically, the OCT-based brain structural imaging was first simulated to illustrate and validate the MMC-OCT strategy. We then focused on the influences of different wavelengths on the measurement of hemoglobin concentration C, oxygen saturation Y, and scattering coefficient S in brain tissue. Finally, it is proposed and verified here that the measurement accuracy of C, Y, and S can be improved by selecting appropriate wavelengths for calculation, which contributes to the experimental study of brain functional sensing.

Editorial on Special Issue “Modern Applications in Optics and Photonics: From Sensing and Analytics to Communication”

“…In contrast, Dong et al [10] propose a method based on dependence analysis to identify and then eliminate the measurement configurations with redundant information in optical scatterometry for fast nanostructure reconstruction. In terms of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), Yi et al [11] report a mesh-based Monte Carlo model in order to study OCT signals reflecting the structural and functional activities of brain tissue as well as to improve the quantitative accuracy of chromophores in tissue. Furthermore, Wang et al [12] evaluate the performance of different closed path determination methods in order to measure the topological charge (TC) of an optical vortex (OV) beam and Fricke et al [13] present a non-contact dermatoscope with ultra-bright light source and liquid lens-based autofocus function.…”