title: Rotationally acquired four-dimensional optical coherence tomography of embryonic chick hearts using retrospective gating on the common central A-scan.
abstract: We introduce a new method of rotational image acquisition for four-dimensional (4D) optical coherence tomography (OCT) of beating embryonic chick hearts. The rotational axis and the central A-scan of the OCT are identical. An out-of-phase image sequence covering multiple heartbeats is acquired at every angle of an incremental rotation of the deflection mirrors of the OCT system. Image acquisition is accomplished after a rotation of 180°. Comparison of a displayed live M-mode of the central A-scan with a reference M-mode allows instant detection of translational movements of the embryo. For calculation of 4D data sets, we apply an image-based retrospective gating algorithm using the phase information of the common central A-scan present in all acquired images. This leads to cylindrical three-dimensional data sets for every time step of the cardiac cycle that can be used for 4D visualization. We demonstrate this approach and provide a video of a beating Hamburger and Hamilton stage 16 embryonic chick heart generated from a 4D OCT data set using rotational image acquisition.
authors.affiliation: Hannover Medical School, Pediatric Cardiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, Hannover, 30625, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoph M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Happel
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thommes
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Thrane
authors.forename: Jrög
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Männer
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ortmaier
authors.forename: Bodo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Heimann
authors.forename: Talat Mesud
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Yelbuz
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D002642:Chick Embryo; D002645:Chickens; D006321:Heart / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000196:embryology* / Q000502:physiology; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*