title: Near-infrared photo-excited emission from tissues treated at different temperature levels.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  There is a lack of methods to evaluate the extent of thermal treatment of biological tissue. The intensity of the near-infrared (NIR) emission photo-excitation was investigated from tissue undergoing different levels of heat treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  Chicken muscle was heated in an oven at different temperature levels ranging from 40 degrees C until burn-off. The spectral emission intensity from these heat-treated tissues was measured with a CCD camera and the intensity was calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The emission intensity increased proportionally with respect to the extent of treatment temperature until burning. Linear relationships between treatment temperature and the emission intensity from tissue samples were found in three temperature ranges: from 40 to 160 degrees C, from 165 to 220 degrees C, and from 225 to 250 degrees C.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The change in tissue damage after heat treatment could be detected by measuring the NIR emission intensity from the thermally damaged tissues.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers and New York State Center for Advanced Technology for Ultrafast Photonic Materials and Applications, New York, New York 10031, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: P P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Ho
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Alfano
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens; D006358:Hot Temperature; D007834:Lasers; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000293:injuries*; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared