Browsing by Author "Wu, Chen"
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Item Assessing the Vasculature Changes in Murine Fetal Brain Upon Alcohol Exposure(2017-10-12) Nguyen, Jennifer; Raghunathan, Raksha; Wu, Chen; Singh, Manmohan; Liu, Chih-HaoFetal Alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) refers to a broad spectrum of abnormalities that arise due to prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). The severity of the abnormality depends on the amount of alcohol consumed and period of consumption during gestation. A large number of women continue to consume alcohol even during the second trimester of pregnancy, a critical period for fetal neurogenesis and angiogenesis. OCT is an optical analog of ultrasound. 3D non-invasive imaging technique with high spatial resolution. OCT has shown to be extremely useful in embryonic imaging. Speckle variance OCT (SVOCT), is a functional extension of OCT that has been used to study vasculature development in embryos. We use SVOCT, to detect vasculature changes in the embryonic brain in utero, minutes after maternal alcohol consumption. The results show that there is a decrease in fetal vessel diameter within the first 10 minutes and it persisted for 45 minutes after maternal alcohol consumption, indicating that ethanol is a possible vasoconstrictor on the fetal brain. This project was completed with contributions from Rajesh C. Miranda from the Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics, Texas A&M Health Science Center.Item Optical Coherence Tomography and Elastography for Tissue Imaging and Biomechanical Characterization(2018-12) Wu, Chen; Larin, Kirill V.; Akay, Metin; Zhang, Yingchun; Mayerich, David; Larina, Irina V.This dissertation reports the developments of novel methods for tissue imaging and characterization of their biomechanical properties based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence elastography (OCE) techniques. This dissertation focuses on the development of: 1) novel optical imaging techniques for mouse embryonic imaging and; 2) quantitative evaluation of the mechanical properties of biological tissues. The optical embryonic imaging section has two sub-sections: a) development of new technique to extend the OCT imaging depth for mouse embryonic imaging by performing multi-angle scanning and b) demonstration of the feasibility of combining the OCT and selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM) for more comprehensive murine embryonic tissue characterization. The OCE section is subdivided into three sub-sections: a) investigating the age-related changes in the viscoelastic properties of crystalline lens with a co-focused ultrasound and OCE system; b) investigating the effect of intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation on the mechanical properties of the crystalline lens; and c) utilizing Lorentz force excitation and ultra-fast OCE to quantify tissue biomechanical properties. This dissertation presents advanced imaging techniques to further improve developmental biology research as well as elastography. The results of this dissertation were published in 22 peer-reviewed manuscripts (including 4 as the first author) [1-22].