Studying Cerebral Blood Flow in Mouse Cortex with Optical Microangiography

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-contact three-dimensional (3D) imaging modality which enables fast in vivo volumetric visualization of internal structures of biological tissues with high resolution. In this thesis, first, the application of OCT advanced extension - optical microangiography (OMAG) - was used to reveal the temporal profile of hemodynamic response to neural activation and the variation of depth-resolved blood flow changes in mouse cerebral cortex. The results showed that the largest hemodynamic response occurred in cortical layer IV. Second, OMAG and Doppler OMAG (DOMAG) techniques were applied to quantitatively evaluate the anesthesia effect on cerebral vessel morphology and blood flow in mouse model. According to the results, isoflurane and ketamine-xylazine caused vasodilation both in large and capillary vessels, which led to increased CBF. Overall, this thesis demonstrated that OMAG is an effective tool for studying depth-resolved microvasculature and blood flow in animal cortex.