Feasibility of Speckle Contrast Optical Spectroscopy for Quantifying Active Muscle Blood Flow

Area of Science:

• Physiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Accurate muscle blood flow quantification is vital for exercise physiology and rehabilitation.
• Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is a standard noninvasive method but is limited by high costs and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
• Speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) is an emerging technique using cameras for potentially lower-cost, higher-SNR tissue blood flow measurement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of SCOS for quantifying muscle blood flow during activity.
• To compare SCOS performance directly against DCS.
• To assess SCOS's potential as a clinical and research tool for vascular function.

Main Methods:

• Utilized speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) with a megapixel camera.
• Quantified muscle blood flow under active conditions.
• Directly compared SCOS measurements with diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS).

Main Results:

• SCOS demonstrated consistency with DCS in relative blood flow index measurements.
• SCOS exhibited a significantly higher SNR than DCS.
• SCOS showed enhanced detection capabilities for pulsatile blood flow.

Conclusions:

• SCOS is a feasible and cost-effective alternative to DCS for muscle blood flow assessment.
• The superior SNR and pulsatile flow detection of SCOS offer advantages for monitoring skeletal muscle microcirculation.
• SCOS holds promise for advancing vascular function assessment in exercise physiology and rehabilitation.