Monitoring sarcomere structure changes in whole muscle using diffuse light reflectance

Normal biomechanical and physiological functions of striated muscles are facilitated by the repeating sarcomere units. Light scattering technique has been used in studying single extracted muscle fibers. However, few studies, if any, have been conducted to investigate the possibility of using optical detection to examine sarcomere structure changes in whole muscles. We conducted a series of experiments to demonstrate that optical scattering properties measured in whole muscle are related to changes in sarcomere structure. These results suggest that photon migration technique has a potential for characterizing in vivo tissue ultrastructure changes in whole muscle.