Tail artifact removal in OCT angiography images of rodent cortex. Issue 11 (7th September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Baran, Utku; Choi, Woo June; Li, Yuandong; Wang, Ruikang K.
• Is Part Of: Journal of biophotonics. Volume 10:Issue 11(2017)
• Page Start: 1421
• Page End: 1429
• Publication Date: 2016-09-07
• Subjects: optical coherence tomography -- OCT angiography -- artifact removal -- stroke; Photonics -- Periodicals; Optical materials -- Periodicals; Optics -- Periodicals; Medical instruments and apparatus -- Periodicals; 621.3605
• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201600194
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1864-063X

Abstract

Abstract : Optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) is a surging non‐invasive, label‐free, in vivo volumetric imaging method, currently being translated to clinical ophthalmology and becoming popular in neuroscience. Despite its attractiveness, there is an inherent issue of using OCT angiograms for quantitative cerebrovascular studies: The dynamic scattering of moving erythrocytes within pial vasculature creates tail‐like artifacts that shadow the capillary vessels in the deeper layers of cortex. This false flow effect is relatively benign for qualitative visualization purposes, but it might have a significant impact on quantitative interpretation of angiographic results. In this work, we propose a simple image processing method to remove these tail artifacts in depth‐resolved OCTA images using an adaptive enface mask generated with OCT structural images. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our method by comparing vessel densities and vessel similarities of depth‐resolved OCT angiograms in a stroke study in a rodent model, in vivo . Thanks to the ability of seeing through the tails of pial vessels, capillary vessels beneath these vessels could be recovered to some extend in the deeper layers of mouse cerebral cortex, leading to a more accurate quantification.Tail artifact removed enface OCT angiogram of deeper layer in vivo mouse cortex. Abstract : This paper proposes a simple image processing method to remove the tail artifacts in depth‐resolved OCT angiography images. Here, OCT structural images are utilized to generate an adaptive enface mask for removal of these artifacts. The effectiveness of this method is shown by comparing vessel densities and vessel similarities of depth‐resolved OCT angiograms in deeper layers of healthy and ischemic rodent cortex, in vivo.