Time-domain fluorescence diffuse optical tomography for living animals by total-light algorithm

We are reporting the first trial image reconstruction of a implanted fluorescent target into a live rat abdomen. We use a simplified algorithm for fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (FDOT), so-called the Total-light algorithm to obtain the absorption image of the target from the measured mean-transit time (MTT). We reconstructed two absorption images with and without a fluorescence target. It is difficult to identify something in the absorption images. However, the difference image between the two images highlights the target. This suggests that our algorithm is robust to the artifacts in the images in the real situation of in vivo measurements.