Scientists rig hospital-grade lightweight blood flow imager on the cheap
Tracking blood flow in the laboratory is an important tool for studying ailments like migraines or strokes and designing new ways to address them. Blood flow is also routinely measured in the clinic, and laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) is one way of measuring these changes; however, this technique requires professional-grade imaging equipment, which limits its use. Now, using $90 worth of off-the-shelf commercial parts including a webcam and a laser pointer, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) have duplicated the performance of expensive, scientific-grade LSCI instruments at a fraction of the cost. The work is the first to show that it is possible to make a reliable blood flow imaging system solely with inexpensive parts, the authors say. The researchers describe their development in the latest issue of the Optical Society's (OSA) journal Biomedical Optics Express.