Backscattering polarimetric imaging of the human brain to determine the orientation and degree of alignment of nerve fiber bundles

Jain, Arushi; Ulrich, Leonie; Jaeger, Michael; Schucht, Philippe; Frenz, Martin; Akarçay, H. Günhan

doi:10.1364/boe.426491

Cited by 13 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To date, there have been several studies which use reflectance polarimetry to visualize white matter fiber tract direction. 6,12 Another important consideration is the necessity of full Mueller polarimetry for in vivo imaging. While acquiring the Mueller matrix of a sample provides the most complete picture of its polarization properties, in brain imaging applications it seems that retardance and depolarization are the most common polarization properties utilized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflectance full Mueller matrix polarimetry for microstructural validation of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging

Bonaventura

Morara²,

Carlson³

et al. 2023

Polarized Light and Optical Angular Momentum for Biomedical Diagnostics 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Knowledge of fiber microstructure and orientation in the brain is critical for understanding the pathogenesis and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) is a noninvasive imaging modality that can generate mappings of nerve fiber orientation. Due to rigorous levels of mathematical modeling involved in reconstructing dMRI data; and limited spatial resolution, there arises a need to validate the biological accuracy of collected dMRI data. Polarized light imaging (PLI) has been shown to have potential for microstructural validation due to the anisotropy in many biological tissues, particularly in myelin sheaths surrounding nerve fibers in the brain. Using PLI for this purpose is appealing because it is directly sensitive to tissue structure and can be done at high resolution. While several studies have had success using PLI for fiber mapping, continuing to advance this modality, particularly reflectance based PLI systems, could provide a valuable avenue for in vivo neural imaging. In order to reach the full potential of reflectance PLI systems, some key questions remain such as the ability of PLI to resolve crossing fibers, and the sensitivity of reflectance PLI to fiber inclination. Tissue phantoms are one potential method to isolate these issues in order to investigate them. In this proceeding, a five-wavelength reflectance Mueller matrix polarimeter is used for imaging of promising PLI tissue phantoms as well as regions of interest in fixed ferret brain samples. The retardance, diattenuation and depolarization mappings are derived from the Mueller matrix and studied in order to assess the sensitivity of this polarimeter configuration to different fiber orientations.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflectance full Mueller matrix polarimetry for microstructural validation of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging

Bonaventura

Morara²,

Carlson³

et al. 2023

Polarized Light and Optical Angular Momentum for Biomedical Diagnostics 2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One of the main advantages of polarization is the high sensitivity of the technique to differences in composition and structural organization within the inspected biological tissues. Among others, polarimetry allows the imaging of nerve fiber bundles in the human brain 9 and the inspection of Alzheimer disease 10 . Polarization-related techniques also demonstrate high accuracy in the early detection of some cancers such as skin cancer 11 , colon cancer 12 , breast cancer 13 , 14 and brain cancer 15 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic pseudo-coloring approaches to improve visual perception and contrast in polarimetric images of biological tissues

Rodríguez

Eeckhout²,

García-Caurel³

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Imaging polarimetry methods have proved their suitability to enhance the image contrast between tissues and structures in organic samples, or even to reveal structures hidden in regular intensity images. These methods are nowadays used in a wide range of biological applications, as for the early diagnosis of different pathologies. To include the discriminatory potential of different polarimetric observables in a single image, a suitable strategy reported in literature consists in associating different observables to different color channels, giving rise to pseudo-colored images helping the visualization of different tissues in samples. However, previous reported polarimetric based pseudo-colored images of tissues are mostly based on simple linear combinations of polarimetric observables whose weights are set ad-hoc, and thus, far from optimal approaches. In this framework, we propose the implementation of two pseudo-colored methods. One is based on the Euclidean distances of actual values of pixels and an average value taken over a given region of interest in the considered image. The second method is based on the likelihood for each pixel to belong to a given class. Such classes being defined on the basis of a statistical model that describes the statistical distribution of values of the pixels in the considered image. The methods are experimentally validated on four different biological samples, two of animal origin and two of vegetal origin. Results provide the potential of the methods to be applied in biomedical and botanical applications.

show abstract

“…Understanding structure-function relationships in the human brain is critical both to understanding normal brain development and function, and also to elucidate the mechanisms of disorders and diseases that alter brain physiology, for example neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease (Lamptey et al, 2022). Additionally there has been motivation to improve brain imaging which can be done in-vivo for the purpose of intraoperative imaging for brain tumor resection (Rodríguez-Núñez et al, 2021b;Jain et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Backscattering PLI, in particular methods based on Mueller Matrix or Stokes polarimetry is emerging as a valuable technique for comprehensive polarization characterization of brain tissue specimens (Rodríguez-Núñez et al, 2021b;Jain et al, 2021). Multiple approaches exist for Mueller Matrix polarimetry, but in general, an optical system is constructed to cycle through different input polarization states and sample different output polarization states (Qi and Elson, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Mueller Matrix can be further decomposed into individual elements such as the linear retardance, diattenuation and circular polarization (Ghosh and Vitkin, 2011). Some recent works have shown that multi-wavelength Stokes polarimetry has great promise for brain microstructural mapping (Menzel et al, 2015;Borovkova et al, 2022), and other groups have begun to explore full brain samples and Mueller Matrix polarimetry for brain imaging (Rodríguez-Núñez et al, 2021a;Jain et al, 2021). However, there remains a need to continue to advance this technology toward in vivo acquisition, by demonstrating the utility of the technique on intact whole brain specimens and assessing the suitability for different animal models and specific brain microstructures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Backscattering Mueller Matrix polarimetry on whole brain specimens shows promise for minimally invasive mapping of microstructural orientation features

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding microscale physiology and microstructural cellular features of the brain is key to understanding mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and injury, as well as prominent changes undergone in development and aging. Non-invasive imaging modalities sensitive to the microscale, especially diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI), are promising for mapping of cellular microstructure of brain tissues; however, there is a need for robust validation techniques to verify and improve the biological accuracy of information derived. Recent advances in dMRI have moved toward probing of the more complex grey matter architecture, challenging current validation techniques, which are largely based on ex vivo staining and microscopy focusing on white matter. Polarized light imaging (PLI) has been shown to be successful for high resolution, direct, microstructural imaging and has been applied to dMRI validation with clear advantages over staining and microscopy techniques. Conventionally, PLI is applied to thin, sectioned samples in transmission mode, but PLI has also been extended to operate in reflectance mode to bridge the gap toward in vivo measurements of the brain. In this report we investigate the use of backscattering Mueller Matrix polarimetry to characterize the microstructural content of intact ferret brain specimens. The results show that backscattering polarimetry can probe white matter fiber coherence and fiber orientation, and show promise for probing grey matter microstructure. Ultimately, this motivates further study to fully understand how best to implement backscattering polarimetry for in vivo microstructural imaging of the brain.

show abstract

Backscattering polarimetric imaging of the human brain to determine the orientation and degree of alignment of nerve fiber bundles

Cited by 13 publications

References 45 publications

Reflectance full Mueller matrix polarimetry for microstructural validation of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging

Reflectance full Mueller matrix polarimetry for microstructural validation of diffusion magnetic resonance imaging

Automatic pseudo-coloring approaches to improve visual perception and contrast in polarimetric images of biological tissues

Backscattering Mueller Matrix polarimetry on whole brain specimens shows promise for minimally invasive mapping of microstructural orientation features

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About