Imaging functional blood vessels by the laser speckle imaging (LSI) technique using Q-statistics of the generalized differences algorithm.

In this work, we report about q statistics concept to improve the performance of generalized differences algorithm based on intensity histogram for imaging functional blood vessel structures in a rodent window chamber of a mice. The method uses the dynamic speckle signals obtained by transilluminating the rodent window chamber to create activity maps of vasculatures. The proposed method of generalized differences with q statistics (GDq) is very sensitive to the values of defined parameters such as: camera exposure time, the q value and the camera frame number. Appropriate choice of q values enhances the visibility (contrast) of functional blood vessels but at the same time without sacrificing the spatial resolution, which is of utmost importance for in-vivo vascular imaging.