title: Early capillary flux homogenization in response to neural activation.
abstract: This Brief Communication reports early homogenization of capillary network flow during somatosensory activation in the rat cerebral cortex. We used optical coherence tomography and statistical intensity variation analysis for tracing changes in the red blood cell flux over hundreds of capillaries nearly at the same time with 1-s resolution. We observed that while the mean capillary flux exhibited a typical increase during activation, the standard deviation of the capillary flux exhibited an early decrease that happened before the mean flux increase. This network-level data is consistent with the theoretical hypothesis that capillary flow homogenizes during activation to improve oxygen delivery.
authors.affiliation: Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA jonghwan@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Jonghwan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Weicheng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Boas
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D002196:Capillaries / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology*; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000502:physiology; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence
keywords: Neurovascular coupling; capillaries; cerebral blood flow measurement; microscopy; optical imaging