NIR electro-optical measurement for pseudo-models of biological tissues

In the research, the pseudo-model technique is proposed and implemented to simulate biological tissues under the framework of investigating near infrared (NIR) light propagating in diffusive media. The same optical characteristics inhere in the corresponding pseudo-models as in real tissues, where pseudo-models are constructed by using various volume densities of Intralipid. The pseudo-model technique proposed in the study has following advantages: 1. For the NIR tomography imaging system, the output signal from the real tissue may be too weak to be detected beyond the ability of current technologies. Thus, the pseudo-model is a viable alternative to cope with the limitation of the system in the measurement of real tissues. 2. Once the pseudo-model of a real tissue is decided, its optical properties can be investigated thoroughly. In addition, the initial estimates for the reconstruction of NIR optical property images can be selected adequately, and the image reconstruction algorithm can be modified accordingly with the information acquired from the pseudo-model. In the experiment, a pseudo-model of the background with an inclusion is performed for real tissues of pork inserted by a bone. It is observed that 1 % v.d. and 3 % v.d. of Intralipids can replace the pork and the bone, respectively, and the characteristics of the pseudo-model proposed here are consistent with those of the real tissues. As part of conclusion, the use of the pseudo-model technique is a promising approach to mimicking real tissues, especially for some parts of human body unable to be detected effectively.