Characterization of continuous wave ultrasound for acousto-optic modulated diffuse correlation spectroscopy (AOM-DCS)

Intra and post-operative blood flow monitoring of tissue has been shown to be effective in the improvement of patient outcomes. Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) has been shown to be effective in measuring blood flow at the bedside, and is a useful technique in measuring cerebral blood flow (CBF) in many clinical settings. However, DCS suffers from reduced sensitivity to blood flow changes at larger tissue depths, making measurements of CBF in adults difficult. This issue can be addressed with acousto-optic modulated diffuse correlation spectroscopy (AOM-DCS), which is a hybrid technique that combines the sensitivity of DCS to blood flow with ultrasound resolution to allow for improved spatial resolution of the optical signal based on knowledge of the area which is insonified by ultrasound. We present a quantitative model for perfusion estimation based on AOM-DCS in the presence of continuous wave ultrasound, supported by theoretical derivations, Monte Carlo simulations, and phantom and human subject experiments. Quantification of the influence of individual mechanisms that contribute to the temporal fluctuations of the optical intensity due to ultrasound is shown to agree with previously derived results. By using this model, the recovery of blood-flow induced scatterer dynamics based on ultrasound-modulated light is shown to deviate by less than one percent from the standard DCS measurement of scatterer dynamics over a range of optical scattering values and scatterer motion conditions. This work provides an important step towards future implementation of AOM-DCS setups with more complex spatio-temporal distributions of ultrasound pressure, which are needed to enhance the DCS spatial resolution.