Optical micro-angiography reveals depth-resolved muscular microcirculation

Impaired muscular microcirculation in lower extremities is common in many peripheral vascular diseases (PVD), especially the peripheral arterial disease (PAD). There is a need for an imaging method that can be used to non-invasively visualize depth-resolved microcirculation within muscle tissues. Optical microangiography (OMAG) is a recently developed label-free imaging method capable of producing 3D images of dynamic blood perfusion within micro-circulatory tissue beds at an imaging depth up to ∼2 mm, with an imaging sensitivity to the blood flow at ∼160 μm/s. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of OMAG in imaging the detailed blood flow distributions, at microcirculatory level resolution, within skeletal muscles in mice. By use of the mouse model of hind-limb ischemia, we show OMAG can assess the perfusion changes caused by ligation. These findings indicate that OMAG is a promising technique to effectively study skeletal muscle-related vascular disease and their pharmacologic therapies.