title: Practical reconstruction method for bioluminescence tomography.
abstract: Bioluminescence tomography (BLT) is used to localize and quantify bioluminescent sources in a small living animal. By advancing bioluminescent imaging to a tomographic framework, it helps to diagnose diseases, monitor therapies and facilitate drug development. In this paper, we establish a direct linear relationship between measured surface photon density and an unknown bioluminescence source distribution by using a finite-element method based on the diffusion approximation to the photon propagation in biological tissue. We develop a novel reconstruction algorithm to recover the source distribution. This algorithm incorporates a priori knowledge to define the permissible source region in order to enhance numerical stability and efficiency. Simulations with a numerical mouse chest phantom demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed BLT algorithm and reveal its performance in terms of source location, density, and robustness against noise. Lastly, BLT experiments are performed to identify the location and power of two light sources in a physical mouse chest phantom.
authors.forename: Wenxiang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cong
authors.forename: Ge
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Durairaj
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Lihong
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McLennan
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McCray
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zabner
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cong