APPLICATION OF DOPPLER OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY IN RHEOLOGICAL STUDIES: BLOOD FLOW AND VESSELS MECHANICAL PROPERTIES EVALUATION

Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography (DOCT) is a noninvasive optical diagnostic technique, which is well suited for the quantitative mapping of microflow velocity profiles and the analysis of flow-vessel interactions. The noninvasive imaging and quantitative analysis of blood flow in the complex-structured vascular bed is required in many biomedical applications, including those where the determination of mechanical properties of vessels or the knowledge of the mechanic interactions between the flow and the housing medium plays a key role. The change of microvessel wall elasticity could be a potential indicator of cardiovascular disease at the very early stage, whilst monitoring the blood flow dynamics and associated temporal and spatial variations in vessel's wall shear stress could help predicting the possible rupture of atherosclerotic plaques. The results of feasibility studies of application of DOCT for the evaluation of mechanical properties of elastic vessel model are presented. The technique has also been applied for imaging of sub-cranial rat blood flow in vivo.