Visualizing regional myocardial blood flow in the mouse.

RATIONALE: The spatial distribution of blood flow in the hearts of genetically modified mice is a phenotype of interest because derangements in blood flow may precede detectable changes in organ function. However, quantifying the regional distribution of blood flow within organs of mice is challenging because of the small organ volume and the high resolution required to observe spatial differences in flow. Traditional microsphere methods in which the numbers of microspheres per region are indirectly estimated from radioactive counts or extracted fluorescence have been limited to larger organs for 2 reasons; to ensure statistical confidence in the measured flow per region and to be able to physically dissect the organ to acquire spatial information. OBJECTIVE: To develop methods to quantify and statistically compare the spatial distribution of blood flow within organs of mice. METHODS AND RESULTS: We developed and validated statistical methods to compare blood flow between regions and with the same regions over time using 15-µm fluorescent microspheres. We then tested this approach by injecting fluorescent microspheres into isolated perfused mice hearts, determining the spatial location of every microsphere in the hearts, and then visualizing regional flow patterns. We demonstrated application of these statistical and visualizing methods in a coronary artery ligation model in mice. CONCLUSIONS: These new methods provide tools to investigate the spatial and temporal changes in blood flow within organs of mice at a much higher spatial resolution than currently available by other methods.

Comparison of CT-derived ventilation maps with deposition patterns of inhaled microspheres in rats.

PURPOSE: Computer models for inhalation toxicology and drug-aerosol delivery studies rely on ventilation pattern inputs for predictions of particle deposition and vapor uptake. However, changes in lung mechanics due to disease can impact airflow dynamics and model results. It has been demonstrated that non-invasive, in vivo, 4DCT imaging (3D imaging at multiple time points in the breathing cycle) can be used to map heterogeneities in ventilation patterns under healthy and disease conditions. The purpose of this study was to validate ventilation patterns measured from CT imaging by exposing the same rats to an aerosol of fluorescent microspheres (FMS) and examining particle deposition patterns using cryomicrotome imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Six male Sprague-Dawley rats were intratracheally instilled with elastase to a single lobe to induce a heterogeneous disease. After four weeks, rats were imaged over the breathing cycle by CT then immediately exposed to an aerosol of ∼ 1 µm FMS for ∼ 5 minutes. After the exposure, the lungs were excised and prepared for cryomicrotome imaging, where a 3D image of FMS deposition was acquired using serial sectioning. Cryomicrotome images were spatially registered to match the live CT images to facilitate direct quantitative comparisons of FMS signal intensity with the CT-based ventilation maps. RESULTS: Comparisons of fractional ventilation in contiguous, non-overlapping, 3D regions between CT-based ventilation maps and FMS images showed strong correlations in fractional ventilation (r = 0.888, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: We conclude that ventilation maps derived from CT imaging are predictive of the 1 µm aerosol deposition used in ventilation-perfusion heterogeneity inhalation studies.

The spatial and temporal heterogeneity of regional ventilation: comparison of measurements by two high-resolution methods.

High-resolution estimates of ventilation distribution in normal animals utilizing deposition of fluorescent microsphere aerosol (FMS technique) demonstrate substantial ventilation heterogeneity, but this finding has not been confirmed by an independent method. Five supine anesthetized sheep were used to compare the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of regional ventilation measured by both the FMS technique and by a ventilation model utilizing the data from computed tomography images of xenon gas washin (CT/Xe technique). An aerosol containing 1 microm fluorescent microspheres (FMS) was administered via a mechanical ventilator delivering a 2-s end-inspiration hold during each breath. Following the aerosol administration, sequential CT images of a transverse lung slice were acquired during each end-inspiration hold during washin of a 65% Xenon/35% oxygen gas mixture (CT/Xe technique). Four paired FMS and CT/Xe measurements were done at 30 min intervals, after which the animals were sacrificed. The lungs were extracted, air-dried and sliced in 1cm transverse sections. The lung section corresponding to the CT image was cut into 1 cm3 cubes, with notation of spatial coordinates. The individual cubes were soaked in solvent and the four fluorescent signals were measured with a fluorescence spectrophotometer. The color signals were normalized by the mean signal for all pieces and taken as the FMS estimate of ventilation heterogeneity. The CT images were clustered into 1 cm3 voxels and the rate of increase in voxel density was used to calculate voxel ventilation utilizing the model of . The regional ventilation voxel measurements were normalized by the mean value to give a CT/Xe estimate of ventilation heterogeneity comparable to the normalized FMS measurements. The overall of heterogeneity of ventilation at the 1 cm3 level of resolution was comparable by both techniques, with substantial differences among animals (coefficient of variation ranging from 37% to 74%). The repeated within-animal measurements by both techniques gave consistent values. Both techniques showed comparable large-scale distribution of regional ventilation in the caudal lobes of the supine animals. There were appreciable differences in the temporal variability of ventilation among animals. This study provides an independent confirmation of the scale-dependent heterogeneity of ventilation described by previous FMS aerosol studies of ventilation heterogeneity.

Airway tree segmentation in serial block-face cryomicrotome images of rat lungs.

A highly automated method for the segmentation of airways in the serial block-face cryomicrotome images of rat lungs is presented. First, a point inside of the trachea is manually specified. Then, a set of candidate airway centerline points is automatically identified. By utilizing a novel path extraction method, a centerline path between the root of the airway tree and each point in the set of candidate centerline points is obtained. Local disturbances are robustly handled by a novel path extraction approach, which avoids the shortcut problem of standard minimum cost path algorithms. The union of all centerline paths is utilized to generate an initial airway tree structure, and a pruning algorithm is applied to automatically remove erroneous subtrees or branches. Finally, a surface segmentation method is used to obtain the airway lumen. The method was validated on five image volumes of Sprague-Dawley rats. Based on an expert-generated independent standard, an assessment of airway identification and lumen segmentation performance was conducted. The average of airway detection sensitivity was 87.4% with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of (84.9, 88.6)%. A plot of sensitivity as a function of airway radius is provided. The combined estimate of airway detection specificity was 100% with a 95% CI of (99.4, 100)%. The average number and diameter of terminal airway branches was 1179 and 159 µm, respectively. Segmentation results include airways up to 31 generations. The regression intercept and slope of airway radius measurements derived from final segmentations were estimated to be 7.22 µm and 1.005, respectively. The developed approach enables the quantitative studies of physiology and lung diseases in rats, requiring detailed geometric airway models.

Heterogeneity and matching of ventilation and perfusion within anatomical lung units in rats.

Prior studies exploring the spatial distributions of ventilation and perfusion have partitioned the lung into discrete regions not constrained by anatomical boundaries and may blur regional differences in perfusion and ventilation. To characterize the anatomical heterogeneity of regional ventilation and perfusion, we administered fluorescent microspheres to mark regional ventilation and perfusion in five Sprague-Dawley rats and then using highly automated computer algorithms, partitioned the lungs into regions defined by anatomical structures identified in the images. The anatomical regions ranged in size from the near-acinar to the lobar level. Ventilation and perfusion were well correlated at the smallest anatomical level. Perfusion and ventilation heterogeneity were relatively less in rats compared to data previously published in larger animals. The more uniform distributions may be due to a smaller gravitational gradient and/or the fewer number of generations in the distribution trees before reaching the level of gas exchange, making regional matching of ventilation and perfusion less extensive in small animals.

High-resolution spatial measurements of ventilation-perfusion heterogeneity in rats.

This study was designed to validate a high-resolution method to measure regional ventilation (VA) in small laboratory animals, and to compare regional Va and perfusion (Q) before and after methacholine-induced bronchoconstriction. A mixture of two different colors of 0.04-microm fluorescent microspheres (FMS) was aerosolized and administered to five anesthetized, mechanically ventilated rats. Those rats also received an intravenous injection of a mixture of two different colors of 15-microm FMS to measure regional blood flow (Q). Five additional rats were labeled with aerosol and intravenous FMS, injected with intravenous methacholine, and then relabeled with a second pair of aerosol and intravenous FMS colors. After death, the lungs were reinflated, frozen, and sequentially sliced in 16-microm intervals on an imaging cryomicrotome set to acquire signal for each of the FMS colors. The reconstructed lung images were sampled using randomly placed 3-mm radius spheres. Va within each sphere was estimated from the aerosol fluorescence signal, and Q was estimated from the number of 15-microm FMS within each sphere. Method error ranged from 6 to 8% for Q and 0.5 to 4.0% for Va. The mean coefficient of variation for Q was 17%, and for Va was 34%. The administration of methacholine altered the distribution of both VA and Q within lung regions, with a change in Va distribution nearly twice as large as that seen for Q. The methacholine-induced changes in Va were not associated with compensatory shifts in Q. Cryomicrotome images of FMS markers provide a high-resolution, anatomically specific means of measuring regional VA/Q responses in the rat.