This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. This research takes advantage of recent evidence indicating that various elements of tissue structure and morphology can be treated as fractal objects and characterized by an appropriately defined fractal dimension. Moreover, there is evidence that changes in tissue morphology and physiology are accompanied by changes in the fractal dimension and that knowledge of the fractal dimension may provide a sensitive and specific indicator of tissue physiological state with important diagnostic potential. Our collaborative research intends to explore experimental approaches employing non-invasive optical methods to examine the magnitude and spatial scales of the variation of optical absorption and scattering properties in model systems and in vivo. Future investigations will explore how such new tissue model descriptions might enhance the analysis of a new virtual tissue simulator under development. Such measurements will be combined with computational efforts to predict optical signatures and other relevant tissue properties based on knowledge of optical absorption and scattering properties and the fractal dimension of the tissue.
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