Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is a non-invasive method to measure blood flow in deep tissue. Typically, DCS equipment consists of a laser, photon counter, and hardware autocorrelator. Photons diffuse through tissue and are detected a short distance away from the source. The resulting signal is sent to a hardware autocorrelator to mathematically determine the blood flow index. Here, we investigate the possibility of using an FX3 board, an I/O device that converts analog signals into binary digital files, to replace the hardware autocorrelator in the DCS setup. We hypothesize that it is possible to determine blood flow levels in human tissue by recording TTL signals with the FX3 and using FFT-based autocorrelation software. Preliminary results indicate that the FX3 board is capable of recording TTL-like signals from a function generator, which were captured and correlated using MATLAB functions. The same process is to be performed on TTL signals taken from the diffused photon count of a flowing substance. In-vitro DCS measurements will be taken on a simulated blood flow device at varying flow rates, and In-vivo measurements will be taken on volunteers. These measurements will be compared to that of a hardware autocorrelator, which may confirm the viability of this new method of DCS.
Author(s): Joseph Hasak, Bioengineering Major
Advisor(s): Karthik Vishwanath, Department of Physics
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