High Resolution, Deep Imaging Using Confocal Time-of-Flight Diffuse Optical Tomography

Light scattering by tissue severely limits how deep beneath the surface one can image, and the spatial resolution one can obtain from these images. Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is one of the most powerful techniques for imaging deep within tissue – well beyond the conventional <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\sim$</tex-math><alternatives> <mml:math> <mml:mo>∼</mml:mo> </mml:math> <inline-graphic xlink:href="zhao-ieq1-3075366.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula>10-15 mean scattering lengths tolerated by ballistic imaging techniques such as confocal and two-photon microscopy. Unfortunately, existing DOT systems are limited, achieving only centimeter-scale resolution. Furthermore, they suffer from slow acquisition times and slow reconstruction speeds making real-time imaging infeasible. We show that time-of-flight diffuse optical tomography (ToF-DOT) and its confocal variant (CToF-DOT), by exploiting the photon travel time information, allow us to achieve millimeter spatial resolution in the highly scattered diffusion regime (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$> \!\!50$</tex-math><alternatives> <mml:math> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>></mml:mo> <mml:mspace width="-0.166667em"/> <mml:mspace width="-0.166667em"/> <mml:mn>50</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> <inline-graphic xlink:href="zhao-ieq2-3075366.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> mean free paths). In addition, we demonstrate two additional innovations: focusing on confocal measurements, and multiplexing the illumination sources allow us to significantly reduce the measurement acquisition time. Finally, we rely on a novel convolutional approximation that allows us to develop a fast reconstruction algorithm, achieving a 100× speedup in reconstruction time compared to traditional DOT reconstruction techniques. Together, we believe that these technical advances serve as the first step towards real-time, millimeter resolution, deep tissue imaging using DOT.

[1]  Matthias Nießner,et al.  Inverse Path Tracing for Joint Material and Lighting Estimation , 2019, 2019 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR).

[2]  Davide Contini,et al.  Miniaturized pulsed laser source for time-domain diffuse optics routes to wearable devices. , 2017, Journal of biomedical optics.

[3]  Davide Contini,et al.  Time-resolved diffuse reflectance using small source-detector separation and fast single-photon gating. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[4]  Ekaterina A. Sergeeva.  Scattering effect on the imaging depth limitin two-photon fluorescence microscopy , 2010 .

[5]  Audrey Repetti,et al.  Computational time-of-flight diffuse optical tomography , 2018, Nature Photonics.

[6]  Xavier Intes,et al.  Direct approach to compute Jacobians for diffuse optical tomography using perturbation Monte Carlo-based photon "replay". , 2018, Biomedical optics express.

[7]  S R Arridge,et al.  Recent advances in diffuse optical imaging , 2005, Physics in medicine and biology.

[8]  Addison Billing,et al.  Functional imaging of the developing brain with wearable high-density diffuse optical tomography: A new benchmark for infant neuroimaging outside the scanner environment , 2020, NeuroImage.

[9]  Shree K. Nayar,et al.  When Does Computational Imaging Improve Performance? , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.

[10]  Ashok Veeraraghavan,et al.  SNLOS: Non-line-of-sight Scanning through Temporal Focusing , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP).

[11]  Merlin Nimier-David,et al.  Radiative Backpropagation: An Adjoint Method for Lightning-Fast Differentiable Rendering , 2020 .

[12]  Gordon Wetzstein,et al.  Confocal non-line-of-sight imaging based on the light-cone transform , 2018, Nature.

[13]  Alessandro Torricelli,et al.  Time-Domain Functional Diffuse Optical Tomography System Based on Fiber-Free Silicon Photomultipliers , 2017 .

[14]  Robert J Cooper,et al.  Review of recent progress toward a fiberless, whole-scalp diffuse optical tomography system , 2017, Neurophotonics.

[15]  Xavier Intes,et al.  Monte Carlo based method for fluorescence tomographic imaging with lifetime multiplexing using time gates , 2011, Biomedical optics express.

[16]  Aswin C. Sankaranarayanan,et al.  Convolutional Approximations to the General Non-Line-of-Sight Imaging Operator , 2019, 2019 IEEE/CVF International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV).

[17]  Joseph P Culver,et al.  High-density diffuse optical tomography for imaging human brain function , 2019, The Review of scientific instruments.

[18]  Jeremy C. Hebden,et al.  Geometrically complex 3D-printed phantoms for diffuse optical imaging , 2017, Biomedical optics express.

[19]  David B. Lindell,et al.  Three-dimensional imaging through scattering media based on confocal diffuse tomography , 2020, Nature Communications.

[20]  Eric L. Miller,et al.  Imaging the body with diffuse optical tomography , 2001, IEEE Signal Process. Mag..

[21]  L Wang,et al.  MCML--Monte Carlo modeling of light transport in multi-layered tissues. , 1995, Computer methods and programs in biomedicine.

[22]  Shuang Zhao,et al.  Inverse Transport Networks , 2018, ArXiv.

[23]  Simon R. Arridge,et al.  Corrections to linear methods for diffuse optical tomography using approximation error modelling , 2010, Biomedical optics express.

[24]  B. Oh,et al.  Skin Imaging Using Ultrasound Imaging, Optical Coherence Tomography, Confocal Microscopy, and Two-Photon Microscopy in Cutaneous Oncology , 2019, Front. Med..

[25]  D Boas,et al.  Simultaneous imaging and optode calibration with diffuse optical tomography. , 2001, Optics express.

[26]  Ramesh Raskar,et al.  Towards photography through realistic fog , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP).

[27]  Davide Contini,et al.  New frontiers in time-domain diffuse optics, a review , 2016, Journal of biomedical optics.

[28]  Andreas H. Hielscher,et al.  A PDE-constrained SQP algorithm for optical tomography based on the frequency-domain equation of radiative transfer , 2008 .

[29]  Anthony B. Davis,et al.  Multiple-Scattering Microphysics Tomography , 2017, 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR).

[30]  Isabelle Noiseux,et al.  Reference optical phantoms for diffuse optical spectroscopy. Part 1--Error analysis of a time resolved transmittance characterization method. , 2010, Optics express.

[31]  Srinivasa G. Narasimhan,et al.  High Resolution Diffuse Optical Tomography using Short Range Indirect Subsurface Imaging , 2020, 2020 IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP).

[32]  Shree K. Nayar,et al.  Multiplexing for Optimal Lighting , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[33]  Ashok Veeraraghavan,et al.  A Framework for Analysis of Computational Imaging Systems: Role of Signal Prior, Sensor Noise and Multiplexing , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[34]  Lihong V. Wang,et al.  Photoacoustic tomography: principles and advances. , 2016, Electromagnetic waves.

[35]  T. Tarvainen,et al.  Time-domain diffuse optical tomography utilizing truncated Fourier series approximation. , 2020, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[36]  Andreas H Hielscher,et al.  Frequency-domain optical tomographic image reconstruction algorithm with the simplified spherical harmonics (SP3) light propagation model. , 2017, International journal of thermal sciences = Revue generale de thermique.

[37]  Jesse S. Ruan,et al.  Investigation of the critical geometric characteristics of living human skulls utilising medical image analysis techniques , 2007 .

[38]  Damon E. Hyde.  Improving Forward Matrix Generation and Utilization for Time Domain Difiuse Optical Tomography , 2004 .

[39]  Alessandro Torricelli,et al.  Time-resolved reflectance at null source-detector separation: improving contrast and resolution in diffuse optical imaging. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[40]  A. Tosi,et al.  Time-resolved diffuse optical tomography using fast-gated single-photon avalanche diodes. , 2013, Biomedical optics express.

[41]  R. Raskar,et al.  Recovering three-dimensional shape around a corner using ultrafast time-of-flight imaging , 2012, Nature Communications.

[42]  Anthony B. Davis,et al.  Airborne Three-Dimensional Cloud Tomography , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV).

[43]  Andreas H. Hielscher,et al.  PDE-constrained multispectral imaging of tissue chromophores with the equation of radiative transfer , 2010, Biomedical optics express.

[44]  Anat Levin,et al.  An Evaluation of Computational Imaging Techniques for Heterogeneous Inverse Scattering , 2016, ECCV.

[45]  Lihong V. Wang,et al.  Biomedical Optics: Principles and Imaging , 2007 .

[46]  J. Jacobson,et al.  An electrophoretic ink for all-printed reflective electronic displays , 1998, Nature.

[47]  Shuang Zhao,et al.  Inverse volume rendering with material dictionaries , 2013, ACM Trans. Graph..

[48]  Davide Contini,et al.  Spatial resolution in depth for time-resolved diffuse optical tomography using short source-detector separations. , 2015, Biomedical optics express.

[49]  M. Glas,et al.  Principles of Computerized Tomographic Imaging , 2000 .

[50]  M. Naser,et al.  Time-domain diffuse optical tomography using recursive direct method of calculating Jacobian at selected temporal points , 2015 .

[51]  Mark A. Anastasio,et al.  Photoacoustic tomography through a whole adult human skull with a photon recycler , 2012, Journal of biomedical optics.

[52]  P. Marquet,et al.  In vivo local determination of tissue optical properties: applications to human brain. , 1999, Applied optics.

[53]  R Macdonald,et al.  Monte Carlo algorithm for efficient simulation of time-resolved fluorescence in layered turbid media. , 2008, Optics express.

[54]  Ashok Veeraraghavan,et al.  Deep imaging in scattering media with selective plane illumination microscopy , 2016, Journal of biomedical optics.

[55]  Wolfgang Rudolph,et al.  Comparative study of confocal and heterodyne microscopy for imaging through scattering media , 1996 .