Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Biophys J. 2011 Sep 21;101(6):1539-45. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2011.08.008. Epub 2011 Sep 20.
The biophysical and biomechanical properties of the crystalline lens (e.g., viscoelasticity) have long been implicated in accommodation and vision problems, such as presbyopia and cataracts. However, it has been difficult to measure such parameters noninvasively. Here, we used in vivo Brillouin optical microscopy to characterize material acoustic properties at GHz frequency and measure the longitudinal elastic moduli of lenses. We obtained three-dimensional elasticity maps of the lenses in live mice, which showed biomechanical heterogeneity in the cortex and nucleus of the lens with high spatial resolution. An in vivo longitudinal study of mice over a period of 2 months revealed a marked age-related stiffening of the lens nucleus. We found remarkably good correlation (log-log linear) between the Brillouin elastic modulus and the Young's modulus measured by conventional mechanical techniques at low frequencies (~1 Hz). Our results suggest that Brillouin microscopy is potentially useful for basic and animal research and clinical ophthalmology.
晶状体的生物物理和生物力学特性（如粘弹性）长期以来一直与调节和视觉问题有关，例如远视和白内障。然而，很难对这些参数进行非侵入性测量。在这里，我们使用体内布里渊光学显微镜在 GHz 频率下对材料声学特性进行了表征，并测量了晶状体的纵向弹性模量。我们获得了活小鼠晶状体的三维弹性图谱，该图谱显示了晶状体皮质和核的生物力学异质性，具有高空间分辨率。对小鼠进行了为期 2 个月的体内纵向研究，发现晶状体核随年龄增长明显变硬。我们发现，布里渊弹性模量与低频（~1 Hz）下传统机械技术测量的杨氏模量之间存在非常好的相关性（对数-对数线性）。我们的研究结果表明，布里渊显微镜在基础研究、动物研究和临床眼科领域具有潜在的应用价值。
