Assessment of cerebral hemodynamics during neurosurgical procedures using laser speckle image analysis

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is a severe medical condition associated with a significant cause of mortality throughout the world. Cisterna magna injection model is accepted widely to mimic clinical aSAH and is performed on small animal models to study aSAH during neurosurgery. Coherent light scattered from the surface of the rat brain is used to infer information about the variations in blood flow during this condition. We obtained speckle images from the exposed cortex during the entire experiment using an external tissue imaging system. Contrast and fractal analyses are carried out for the recorded speckle pattern time series. Correlation analysis based on Hurst exponent for these images is found to be a more sensitive tool in studying aSAH as compared to routinely used laser speckle contrast analysis for assessing the changes in blood flow velocity. Additionally, our studies provide improved blood flow detection sensitivity with image Hurst exponent in combination with computed fractal dimension, during an event of aSAH.