Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum München, D-85764, Neuherberg, Germany.
Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, D-85764, Neuherberg, Germany.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Jul;10(19):e2301322. doi: 10.1002/advs.202301322. Epub 2023 Apr 24.
Various morphological and functional parameters of peripheral nerves and their vascular supply are indicative of pathological changes due to injury or disease. Based on recent improvements in optoacoustic image quality, the ability of multispectral optoacoustic tomography, to investigate the vascular environment and morphology of peripheral nerves is explored in vivo in a pilot study on healthy volunteers in tandem with ultrasound imaging (OPUS). The unique ability of optoacoustic imaging to visualize the vasa nervorum by observing intraneural vessels in healthy nerves is showcased in vivo for the first time. In addition, it is demonstrated that the label-free spectral optoacoustic contrast of the perfused connective tissue of peripheral nerves can be linked to the endogenous contrast of hemoglobin and collagen. Metrics are introduced to analyze the composition of tissue based on its optoacoustic contrast and show that the high-resolution spectral contrast reveals specific differences between nervous tissue and reference tissue in the nerve's surrounding. How this showcased extraction of peripheral nerve characteristics using multispectral optoacoustic and ultrasound imaging could offer new insights into the pathophysiology of nerve damage and neuropathies, for example, in the context of diabetes is discussed.
外周神经的各种形态和功能参数及其血管供应都表明，由于损伤或疾病会发生病理变化。基于光声图像质量的最新进展，多光谱光声断层扫描的能力，与超声成像（OPUS）一起，在健康志愿者的初步研究中探索了外周神经的血管环境和形态。光声成像通过观察健康神经中的神经内血管来可视化神经血管的独特能力，这是首次在体内展示。此外，还证明了可灌注的外周神经结缔组织的无标记光谱光声对比可以与血红蛋白和胶原的内源性对比相关联。引入了一些指标来分析基于光声对比的组织组成，并表明高分辨率光谱对比揭示了神经周围神经组织与参考组织之间的特定差异。讨论了使用多光谱光声和超声成像展示提取外周神经特征如何为神经损伤和神经病变的病理生理学提供新的见解，例如在糖尿病的背景下。
