In vivo imaging of scattering and absorption properties of exposed brain using a digital red-green-blue camera

We investigate a method to estimate the spectral images of reduced scattering coefficients and the absorption coefficients of in vivo exposed brain tissues in the range from visible to near-infrared wavelength (500-760 nm) based on diffuse reflectance spectroscopy using a digital RGB camera. In the proposed method, the multi-spectral reflectance images of in vivo exposed brain are reconstructed from the digital red, green blue images using the Wiener estimation algorithm. The Monte Carlo simulation-based multiple regression analysis for the absorbance spectra is then used to specify the absorption and scattering parameters of brain tissue. In this analysis, the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin and that of deoxygenated hemoglobin are estimated as the absorption parameters whereas the scattering amplitude a and the scattering power b in the expression of μs'=aλ-b as the scattering parameters, respectively. The spectra of absorption and reduced scattering coefficients are reconstructed from the absorption and scattering parameters, and finally, the spectral images of absorption and reduced scattering coefficients are estimated. The estimated images of absorption coefficients were dominated by the spectral characteristics of hemoglobin. The estimated spectral images of reduced scattering coefficients showed a broad scattering spectrum, exhibiting larger magnitude at shorter wavelengths, corresponding to the typical spectrum of brain tissue published in the literature. In vivo experiments with exposed brain of rats during CSD confirmed the possibility of the method to evaluate both hemodynamics and changes in tissue morphology due to electrical depolarization.