We present 3-dimensional volume-rendered in vivo images of developing embryos of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis taken with our new en-face-scanning, focus-tracking OCM system at 1300 nm wavelength. Compared to our older instrument which operates at 850 nm, we measure a decrease in the attenuation coefficient by 33%, leading to a substantial improvement in depth penetration. Both instruments have motion-sensitivity capability. By evaluating the fast Fourier transform of the fringe signal, we can produce simultaneously images displaying the fringe amplitude of the backscattered light and images showing the random Brownian motion of the scatterers. We present time-lapse movies of frog gastrulation, an early event during vertebrate embryonic development in which cell movements result in the formation of three distinct layers that later give rise to the major organ systems. We show that the motion-sensitive images reveal features of the different tissue types that are not discernible in the fringe amplitude images. In particular, we observe strong diffusive motion in the vegetal (bottom) part of the frog embryo which we attribute to the Brownian motion of the yolk platelets in the endoderm.

Date Published: 7 February 2007
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 6429, Coherence Domain Optical Methods and Optical Coherence Tomography in Biomedicine XI, 64292T (7 February 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.701420

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6429:
Coherence Domain Optical Methods and Optical Coherence Tomography in Biomedicine XI
James G. Fujimoto; Joseph A. Izatt; Valery V. Tuchin, Editor(s)