The measurement of soft tissue fiber orientation is fundamental to pathophysiology and biomechanical function in a multitude of biomedical applications. However, many existing techniques for quantifying fiber structure rely on transmitted light, limiting general applicability and often requiring tissue processing. Herein, we present a novel wide-field reflectance-based imaging modality, which combines polarized light imaging (PLI) and spatial frequency domain imaging (SFDI) to rapidly quantify preferred fiber orientation on soft collagenous tissues. PLI utilizes the polarization dependent scattering property of fibers to determine preferred fiber orientation; SFDI imaging at high spatial frequency is introduced to reject the highly diffuse photons and to control imaging depth. As a result, photons scattered from the superficial layer of a multi-layered sample are highlighted. Thus, fiber orientation quantification can be achieved for the superficial layer with optical sectioning. We demonstrated on aortic heart valve leaflet that, at spatial frequency of f = 1mm⁻¹, the diffuse background can be effectively rejected and the imaging depth can be limited, thus improving quantification accuracy.

As a major constituent of the eye, collagen fibers are organized into highly complex structures with distinct mechanical and optical properties essential to the normal ocular functions.^1,2 Recent studies suggest that collagen fibers play an important role in several ocular diseases, such as glaucoma,^3,4 myopia,⁵ and keratoconus.^6,7 Understanding its architecture and biomechanics is thus critical to preserve and restore vision.

A new approach to retrieve the attenuation-corrected fluorescence using spatial frequency-domain imaging is demonstrated. Both in vitro and ex vivo experiments showed the technique can compensate for the fluorescence attenuation from tissue absorption and scattering. This approach has potential in molecular image-guided surgery.

We introduce a technique that limits absorption effects in fluorescence imaging and does not require extensive imaging processing, thus allowing for video rate imaging. The absorption minimization is achieved using spatial frequency domain imaging at a single high spatial frequency with standard three-phase demodulation. At a spatial frequency f=0.5 mm−1, we demonstrated in both in-vitro phantoms and ex-vivo tissue that the absorption can be significantly reduced. In the real-time implementation, we achieved a video rate of 19 frames/s. This technique has potential in cancer visualization and tumor margin detection.

Our group previously introduced Polarized Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (PSFDI), a wide-field, reflectance imaging technique which we used to empirically map fiber direction in porcine pulmonary heart valve leaflets (PHVL) without optical clearing or physical sectioning of the sample. Presented is an extended analysis of our PSFDI results using an inverse Mueller matrix model of polarized light scattering that allows additional maps of fiber orientation distribution, along with instrumentation permitting increased imaging speed for dynamic PHVL fiber measurements. We imaged electrospun fiber phantoms with PSFDI, and then compared these measurements to SEM data collected for the same phantoms. PHVL was then imaged and compared to results of the same leaflets optically cleared and imaged with small angle light scattering (SALS). The static PHVL images showed distinct regional variance of fiber orientation distribution, matching our SALS results. We used our improved imaging speed to observe bovine tendon subjected to dynamic loading using a biaxial stretching device. Our dynamic imaging experiment showed trackable changes in the fiber microstructure of biological tissue under loading. Our new PSFDI analysis model and instrumentation allows characterization of fiber structure within heart valve tissues (as validated with SALS measurements), along with imaging of dynamic fiber remodeling. The experimental data will be used as inputs to our constitutive models of PHVL tissue to fully characterize these tissues' elastic behavior, and has immediate application in determining the mechanisms of structural and functional failure in PHVLs used as bio-prosthetic implants.