We examined the relationship between the work of breathing (W b ) during exercise and in vivo measures of airway size in healthy females and males. We hypothesized that sex-differences in airway luminal area (Ai) would explain the larger resistive W b during exercise in females. Healthy participants (n=11 females and n=11 males; 19-30 y) completed a cycle exercise test to exhaustion where W b was assessed using an esophageal balloon catheter. On a separate day, participants underwent a bronchoscopy procedure for optical coherence tomography measures of airways in the left (n=3) and right (n=4) lung. In ...

The etiology of ethanol-related congenital heart defects has been the focus of much study, but most research has concentrated on cellular and molecular mechanisms. We have shown with optical coherence tomography (OCT) that ethanol exposure led to increased retrograde flow and smaller atrioventricular (AV) cushions compared to controls. Since AV cushions play a role in patterning the conduction delay at the atrioventricular junction (AVJ), this study aims to investigate whether ethanol exposure alters the AVJ conduction in early looping hearts and whether this alteration is related to the decreased cushion size. Quail embryos were exposed to a single dose of ...

The inability to assess and measure changes to the airway smooth muscle (ASM) in vivo is a major challenge to evaluating asthma and its clinical outcomes. Bronchial thermoplasty (BT) is a therapy for asthma that aims to reduce the severity of excessive bronchoconstriction by ablating ASM. While multiple long-term clinical studies of BT have produced encouraging results, the outcomes of BT treatment in practice have been variable, and questions remain regarding the selection of patients. Previously we have demonstrated an imaging platform called orientation-resolved optical coherence tomography that can assess ASM endoscopically using an imaging catheter compatible with bronchoscopy. In ...

Age-related blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption and cerebromicrovascular rarefaction contribute importantly to the pathogenesis of both vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent advances in geroscience research enable development of novel interventions to reverse age-related alterations of the cerebral microcirculation for prevention of VCID and AD. To facilitate this research, there is an urgent need for sensitive and easy-to-adapt imaging methods that enable longitudinal assessment of changes in BBB permeability and brain capillarization in aged mice and that could be used in vivo to evaluate treatment efficiency. To enable longitudinal assessment of changes in BBB permeability ...

Increased regurgitant blood flow has been linked to endocardial cushion defects and resultant congenital heart diseases (CHDs). Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been shown to alter early blood flow resulting in abnormal endocardial cushions and CHDs. Compounds, including folic acid (FA), mitigate PAE effects and prevent CHDs, but few studies have assessed their effects on blood flow. We modeled binge drinking in quail embryos at gastrulation. Embryos were exposed to ethanol alone, FA (3.2 μg/egg) alone, and the two simultaneously. We quantified in cardiac looping stages (equivalent to 4 weeks of human gestation) regurgitant blood flow with Doppler ...

In neural tissues, the coupling between neural activity and blood flow is a physiological key principle in blood flow regulation. We used optical coherence tomography angiography to investigate stimulus-evoked hemodynamic responses in different microvascular layers of the human retina. Twenty-two healthy subjects were included. Vessel density before and during light stimulation was measured using optical coherence tomography angiography and assessed for the superficial, intermediate and deep capillary plexus of the retinal circulation. Volumetric blood flow was measured using a custom-built Doppler optical coherence tomography system. Our results show that flicker stimulation induced a significant increase in the vessel density of ...

The pathophysiology and timecourse of impairment in cutaneous microcirculatory function and structure remain poorly understood in diabetics, partly due to the lack of investigational tools capable of directly imaging and quantifying the microvasculature in vivo. We applied a new optical coherence tomography (OCT) technique, at rest and during reactive hyperemia (RH), to assess the skin microvasculature in diabetic people with foot ulcers (DFU, n=13), diabetics without ulcers (DNU, n=9) and matched healthy controls (CON, n=13). OCT images were obtained from the dorsal part of the foot, at rest and 30 seconds after deflation following 5 minutes of ...

Airway mucus obstruction is a hallmark of chronic lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis, asthma and COPD, and the development of more effective mucus mobilizing therapies remains an important unmet need for patients with these muco-obstructive lung diseases. However, methods for sensitive visualization and quantitative assessment of immediate effects of therapeutic interventions on mucus clearance in vivo are lacking. In this study, we determined if newly developed high-speed microscopic optical coherence tomography (mOCT) is sensitive to detect and compare in vivo effects of inhaled isotonic saline, hypertonic saline and bicarbonate on mucus mobilization and clearance in Scnn1b -transgenic mice with ...