Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) for single vessel monitoring of functional neurovascular activation

Wen-Chuan Kuo^1*, Yue-Ming Kuo¹, Jia-Pu Syu¹, Han-Lin Wang², You-Yin Chen²

¹Institute of Biophotonics, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
²Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

* Presenter:Wen-Chuan Kuo, email:wckuo@ym.edu.tw

Brain function is associated with blood circulation, whose imbalance may lead to several neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, several neuroimaging methods have been used in functional brain mapping, including positron emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, magnetic or ionizing contrast agents have to be used, and these methods suffer from poor soft-tissue contrast and relatively low resolution in vivo, resolving the behaviors of individual vessels is still not possible with fMRI. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a powerful tool for noncontact and noninvasive tomographic imaging of biological tissues. One of the functional extensions of the OCT technique, OCT angiography, has made a great success in clinical ophthalmology, whereas not been widely used in neuroscience research yet. This presentation summarizes several novel applications of OCT angiography technique in NYMU OCT Lab, including the examination of neurovascular coupling effect. We mapped cerebral blood vessels in the cortex, and the temporal alteration in blood perfusion during neurovascular activation is analyzed. By using principal component analysis (PCA)-based Fuzzy C Means clustering method, the stimulus-evoked vasomotion patterns were classified into three categories.

Keywords: optical coherence tomography, angiography, neurovascular coupling