Improved velocimetry in optical coherence tomography using Bayesian analysis

Biomed Opt Express. 2015 Nov 12;6(12):4796-811. doi: 10.1364/BOE.6.004796. eCollection 2015 Dec 1.

Abstract

OCT is a popular cross-sectional microscale imaging modality in medicine and biology. While structural imaging using OCT is a mature technology in many respects, flow and motion estimation using OCT remains an intense area of research. In particular, there is keen interest in maximizing information extraction from the complex-valued OCT signal. Here, we introduce a Bayesian framework into the data workflow in OCT-based velocimetry. We demonstrate that using prior information in this Bayesian framework can significantly improve velocity estimate precision in a correlation-based, model-based framework for Doppler and transverse velocimetry. We show results in calibrated flow phantoms as well as in vivo in a Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) heart. Thus, our work improves upon the current approaches in terms of improved information extraction from the complex-valued OCT signal.

Keywords: (000.5490) Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics; (030.6140) Speckle; (110.4153) Motion estimation and optical flow; (110.4500) Optical coherence tomography; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (290.5820) Scattering measurements.