LIGHT SHEET LASER SPECKLE FOR IMAGING BLOOD FLOW AND VASCULATURE IN ZEBRAFISH EMBRYO

Abstract

Detection of blood flow rate and vasculature of a zebrafish has been widely studied in the field of optical research to understand the functioning and underlying disease diagnosis without harmful radiations. However, there are minuscule techniques that are label-free. Light-sheet laser speckle contrast imaging is a novel technique focusing on label-free imaging introduced in this thesis, which combines the illumination strategy of a light sheet fluorescent microscopy (LSFM) and the detection strategy of Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI). This setup shows successful blood vasculature imaging in different regions and developmental stages of the zebrafish embryo without labelling. The label-free quantitative velocity flow rate detection and optical sectioning capabilities of the setup also show its contribution to the field of laser speckle imaging. However, further research could increase the resolution of the image and reduce the post-processing time to make the system adaptable in real-time.