The Neural Control of Blood Flow to Normal, Injured and Arthritic Joints

An imaging technique (laser Doppler perfusion imaging, LDI), based on measurement of backscattered Doppler-broadened laser radiation, was used to produce two-dimensional images of perfusion in animal and human joints. The advantage of this technique is that it can map the spatial distribution of tissue perfusion in a non-invasive manner. On the downside, however, LDI is unable to provide absolute measures of blood flow and it is incapable of assessing temporal changes in perfusion. The former disadvantage was addressed in this thesis by comparing LDI flux values obtained from rabbit medial collateral ligaments (MCL) with simultaneous absolute measures of blood flow determined by the coloured microsphere technique. These experiments were able to calibrate the LDI system, however, since different tissues have unique optical properties, the calibration factor produced in this study was specific to rabbit MCLs