A Mesh-Based Monte Carlo Study for Investigating Structural and Functional Imaging of Brain Tissue Using Optical Coherence Tomography

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can obtain high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) structural images of biological tissues, and spectroscopic OCT, which is one of the functional extensions of OCT, can also quantify chromophores of tissues. Due to its unique features, OCT has been increasingly used for brain imaging. To support the development of the simulation and analysis tools on which OCT-based brain imaging depends, a model of mesh-based Monte Carlo for OCT (MMC-OCT) is presented in this work to study OCT signals reflecting the structural and functional activities of brain tissue. In addition, an approach to improve the quantitative accuracy of chromophores in tissue is proposed and validated by MMC-OCT simulations. Specifically, the OCT-based brain structural imaging was first simulated to illustrate and validate the MMC-OCT strategy. We then focused on the influences of different wavelengths on the measurement of hemoglobin concentration C, oxygen saturation Y, and scattering coefficient S in brain tissue. Finally, it is proposed and verified here that the measurement accuracy of C, Y, and S can be improved by selecting appropriate wavelengths for calculation, which contributes to the experimental study of brain functional sensing.