Compensation for causes of temporal fluctuations of backscattered speckle patterns in laser speckle rheology of biological fluids

1. A method for determining a viscoelastic modulus of a tissue sample possessing at least one of an optical scattering characteristic and an absorption characteristic with the use of laser speckle rheology (LSR), the method comprising:

acquiring, from the tissue sample, using an optical detector coupled to a computer processor on a computing device and executing computational steps on a computer readable medium, data sets representing time evolution of speckle associated with the sample irradiated with light from a light source;

determining, by the computing device, an optical property of said tissue sample based at least on a radial profile of flux determined from the acquired data sets; and

calculating, by the computing device, a mean square displacement (MSD) value based on intensity temporal autocorrelation curve, which curve describes the time evolution of speckle based on the determined optical property and sample viscoelasticity.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the determining an optical property includes calculating an absorption coefficient and a reduced scattering coefficient based at least on a radial profile of flux determined from averaged-over-time data from the data sets.

3. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising calculating a total momentum transfer distribution associated with photon scattering at the optically scattering tissue sample based on the optical property.

4. A method according to claim 3 , wherein the calculating a total momentum transfer distribution includes calculating a total momentum transfer distribution based on absorption and reduced scattering coefficients determined, with a diffusion approximation, from the radial profile of flux.

5. A method according to claim 3 including polarization-sensitive correlation transfer Monte-Carlo ray tracing enabling a simulation of a correlation transport of polarized light by calculating a total momentum transfer distribution based on the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients that are determined, with a diffusion approximation, from the radial profile of flux.

6. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising deriving a simulated Laplace transform of a total momentum transfer function corresponding to the optical property of the tissue sample.

7. A method according to claim 6 , further comprising determining fitting parameters for a curve fitted to the simulated Laplace transform based on statistics of photons scattered by the optically scattering tissue sample.

8. A method according to claim 7 , wherein the determining fitting parameters include determining fitting parameters based on the simulated Laplace transform of the total momentum transfer associated with photon scattering at the optically scattering tissue sample.

9. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the calculating MSD value includes calculating a speckle intensity temporal autocorrelation function and determining an MSD value from said speckle intensity temporal autocorrelation function.

10. A method according to claim 1 , further comprising calculating a frequency-dependent value representing logarithmic slope of the MSD value as a function of time.

11. A method according to claim 10 , further comprising determining a frequency-dependent value of complex viscoelastic modulus characterizing the optically scattering tissue sample.

12. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said tissue includes a biological fluid.

13. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said tissue includes at least one of a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), mucus, synovial fluid, vitreous humor, blood, lymph, and an organ lubricant.

14. A method for determining a viscoelastic modulus of a biological fluid characterized by at least one of optical scattering and absorption with the use of laser speckle rheology (LSR), the method comprising:

acquiring, from the biological fluid, using an optical detector coupled to a computer processor on a computing device and executing computational steps on a computer readable medium, data sets representing time evolution of speckle associated with the biological fluid irradiated with laser light;

calculating, by the computing device, an intensity decorrelation function based on the acquired data sets;

determining, by the computing device, parameters of a fitting curve, for the intensity decorrelation function, based on the Laplace transform of a momentum transfer distribution associated with photon scattering by the biological fluid and calculated based on at least an absorption and a reduced scattering coefficient characterizing distribution of optical scatterers in the biological fluid; and

deriving, by the computing device, a value of the viscoelastic modulus based on a closed algebraic form of the fitting curve.

15. A method according to claim 14 , wherein the determining parameters of a fitting curve includes integrating the momentum transfer distribution over photon paths.

16. A method according to claim 14 , wherein the determining parameters of a fitting curve includes determining said parameters based at least on a radial profile of flux derived from the acquired data sets.

17. A method according to claim 14 , wherein the deriving a value includes calculating a corrected mean square displacement (MSD) value corresponding to the closed algebraic form of the fitting curve.

18. A method according to claim 14 , wherein said biological fluid includes at least one of a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), mucus, synovial fluid, vitreous humor, blood, lymph, and an organ lubricant.