Functional near-infrared imaging reconstruction based on spatiotemporal features: venous occlusion studies

Noncontact-based near-infrared (NIR) optical imaging devices are developed for noninvasive tissue imaging in various clinical applications. Most of these devices focus on obtaining the spatial information for identification of blood vessels as in subsurface vein localization applications. In the current study, the spatiotemporal mapping of blood vessels based on functional information was performed using NIR optical imaging without the use of external contrast agents. A 710 nm LED source and a compact NIR-sensitive CCD camera system were employed during a simple cuff (0–60 mm Hg) experiment in order to acquire the dynamic NIR data from the dorsum of a hand. The spatiotemporal features of dynamic NIR data were extracted from the cuff experimental data to localize vessels according to blood dynamics. The blood vessels’ structure was reconstructed from the dynamic data based on the spatiotemporal features. Demonstrating the spatiotemporal feature of blood dynamic imaging using a portable noncontact NIR imaging device without external contrast agents is significant for applications such as peripheral vascular diseases and wound screening.