A Stochastic optimization approach to laser speckle contrast imaging for a better estimation of blood flow

Abstract

We have recently proposed the use of stochastic differential equations to simulate speckle intensity with pre-defined probability density function and auto-correlation for applications in imaging tissue blood flow. Here, we extend the above-mentioned model to compute better estimates of blood flow from speckle measurements using a stochastic optimization approach. We validate the method using simulations, tissue-mimicking flow phantoms, and in − vivo human experiments.