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<p>Developmental biology is a field in which explorations are made to answer how an
organism transforms from a single cell to a complex system made up of trillions of
highly organized and highly specified cells. This field, however, is not just for
discovery, it is crucial for unlocking factors that lead to diseases, defects, or
malformations. The one key ingredient that contributes to the success of studies in
developmental biology is the technology that is available for use. Optical coherence
tomography (OCT) is one such technology. OCT fills a niche between the high resolution
of confocal microscopy and deep imaging penetration of ultrasound. Developmental studies
of the chicken embryo heart are of great interest. Studies in mature hearts, zebrafish
animal models, and to a more limited degree chicken embryos, indicate a relationship
between blood flow and development. It is believed that at the earliest stages, when
the heart is still a tube, the purpose of blood flow is not for convective transport
of oxygen, nutrients and waster, bur rather to induce shear-related gene expressions
to induce further development. Yet, to this date, the simple question of "what makes
blood flow?" has not been answered. This is mainly due limited availability to adequate
imaging and blood flow measurement tools. Earlier work has demonstrated the potential
of OCT for use in studying chicken embryo heart development, however quantitative
measurement techniques still needed to be developed. In this dissertation I present
technological developments I have made towards building an OCT system to study chick
embryo heart development. I will describe: 1) a swept-source OCT with extended imaging
depth; 2) a spectral domain OCT system for non-invasive small animal imaging; 3) Doppler
flow imaging and techniques for quantitative blood flow measurement in living chicken
embryos; and 4) application of the OCT system that was developed in the Specific Aims
2-5 to test hypotheses generated by a finite element model which treats the embryonic
chick heart tube as a modified peristaltic pump.</p>
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