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Updated: May 5, 2026
Multi-timescale Microscopy Methods for the Characterization of Fluorescently-labeled Microbubbles for Ultrasound-Triggered Drug Release
Published on: June 12, 2021
Computational optical streak microscopy of megahertz acoustic microbubble dynamics
Miguel Marquez1, Yingming Lai1, Miao Liu1
1Laboratory of Applied Computational Imaging, Centre Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université du Québec, 1650 Boulevard Lionel-Boulet, Varennes, Québec J3X1P7 Canada.
Abstract:
Real-time dynamic imaging of microbubbles is crucial for understanding their microscale biophysical interactions and advancing ultrasound therapy. Despite progress in time-resolved optical imaging, existing techniques still face trade-offs between acquisition speed, spatial resolution, affordability, and system complexity. Here, we introduce compressed optical-streaking dark-field ultrahigh-speed microscopy (COSDUM), a compact imaging platform that synergistically combines compressed sensing, streak imaging, dark-field microscopy, and deep learning. COSDUM compressively records megahertz acoustic microbubble dynamics over a wide field of view in a snapshot and reconstructs spatially resolved dynamics using a convolutional neural network-based algorithm. Using COSDUM, we captured stable cavitation, nonlinear oscillations, post-excitation free oscillations, and inertial collapse across microbubbles whose radii range from 0.5 to 2.1 μm. Applying COSDUM to microbubble-cell interaction in whole blood, we observed, for the first time, interplay between vibrating microbubbles and blood cells, including microbubble-driven platelet dynamics and highly asymmetric microbubble deformation and conformation around an adjacent red blood cell.
Supplementary Information:
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43074-026-00232-8.
