Measuring blood flow in the laboratory to study ailments like migraines or strokes and designing new ways to address them can be accomplished using laser speckle contrast imaging. However, this requires expensive professional-grade imaging equipment. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin say that they can duplicate the performance of those scientific-grade instruments, using $90 worth of off-the-shelf commercial parts including a webcam and a laser pointer.

Describing their work in the Optical Society’s journal, Biomedical Optics Express, they say that using laser light to illuminate the tissue, a camera to record the image, and focusing optics to direct the scattered light to the camera allows scientists to visualize the flow of blood within tissue, but the equipment could costs up to $5,000.

By using only inexpensive equipment, including a $5 laser pointer to illuminate the patch of tissue to be imaged, focused by a pair of generic 40-mm camera lenses onto the sensor of a $35 webcam, the team was able to image changes in blood flow in a mouse model and found that they could identify areas of high flow versus low flow.

At just 5.6 centimeters in length and weighing only 25 grams, their system is compact and lightweight, which would make it easier to transport for imaging applications outside of the lab, including clinics in areas with limited access to medical care.

Currently, their system’s field of view, which is just a few square millimeters across, and resolution are limited by the size of the webcam sensor, but future versions could have a more flexible layout.

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