Non-invasive surface-stripping for epifluorescence small animal imaging

Non-invasive near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) imaging is a powerful tool to study pathophysiology in a wide variety of animal disease models including brain diseases. However, especially in NIRF imaging of the brain or other deeper laying target sites, background fluorescence emitted from the scalp or superficial blood vessels can impede the detection of fluorescence in deeper tissue. Here, we introduce an effective method to reduce the impact of fluorescence from superficial layers. The approach uses excitation light at two different wavelengths generating two images with different depth sensitivities followed by an adapted subtraction algorithm. This technique leads to significant enhancement of the contrast and the detectability of fluorochromes located in deep tissue layers in tissue simulating phantoms and murine models with stroke.

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