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Updated: Jan 30, 2026

Evaluation of Cerebral Blood Flow Autoregulation in the Rat Using Laser Doppler Flowmetry
Published on: January 19, 2020
Comparison of Laser Doppler Flowmetry With Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound to Approximate Placental Microvascular Blood
Yarines Gonzalez-Rodriguez1, Rachel W Walmer2, Shannon Krainiak3
1Animal Resources Program, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.
Background:
The ability to study in vivo microvascular flow within the placenta is limited. We sought to compare two techniques for evaluation of placental perfusion in a translational nonhuman primate model.
Methods:
We measured placental microvascular perfusion in six pregnant African green monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus) using both Laser Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) and contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in 2-4 discrete placental locations per animal at early- (EG), mid- (MG), and/or late-gestation (LG). We assessed correlation between matched LDF and CEUS, with the hypothesis that we would observe concordance between these two measures of relative perfusion.
Results:
Using 35 total paired measurements (13 EG, n = 4; 12 MG, n = 4; 10 LG, n = 5), we found no correlation between LDF microvascular perfusion and CEUS microvascular flux rate (Pearson r = -0.2026, R2 = 0.0411, p = 0.2431).
Conclusion:
LDF and CEUS produce discordant results with respect to placental perfusion. LDF is ill-suited to a heterogeneous organ such as the placenta.
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