Measurement of Strain and Strain Rate in Embryonic Chick Heart In Vivo Using Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography

The ability to measure in vivo strain and strain rate in embryonic chick heart is one of the key requirements for understanding the mechanisms of cardiac development. Due to its high temporal and spatial resolution as well as its fast imaging capability, optical coherence tomography (OCT) has the potential to reveal the complex myocardial activity in the living chick heart. We describe a method to evaluate the in vivo strain and strain rate of the myocardium through analyzing the periodic variation of the myocardial wall thickness calculated from real-time serial OCT images. The results demonstrate that OCT can be a useful tool to describe the biomechanical characteristics of the embryonic heart.