Heart valves
Clinical applications of multiphoton microscopy
Nonlinear optical microscopy (NLOM) provides many opportunities for minimally invasive investigating tissues without exogenous staining. We try to integrate the process from image interpretion, through image analysis and biophysical model to maximize the information which can be presented to the clinician.
The information acquired may provide insight into diagnosis, improved therapeutics and better understanding of disease progression. Basically any tissue may be examined but we are focusing on three main areas: ostheoarthritis in cartilage, atherosclerosis in heart vessels as well as breast cancer. Nonlinear optical microscopy
Research topics
Heart valves
The valves of the heart prevent blood from flowing in the wrong direction between the ventricle and the atria. Sometimes these valves do not function exactly like they should. These problems can be visualized by ultrasound. However, to assess what is wrong, mechanical models of the valves are needed to understand the ultrasound images.
The heart valves consists mainly of collagen and elastin, both of which can be imaged by NLOM; collagen by SHG and elastin by TPEF. By imaging the structure and directionality of theses fibres, important input information for the mechanical models can be achieved.
We are also imaging these structures under various strains to better understand how the fibres impart the mechanical strength to the tissue.
Collaborators
Bjørn Helge Skallerud, Department of Structural Engineering (NTNU)
Contact: Magnus Borstad Lilledahl