Assessing the fractional contributions of static, slow and fast dynamic scatterer components to the flow index derived by continuous wave diffuse correlation spectroscopy

<jats:p>Continuous wave diffuse correlation spectroscopy (cw-DCS) is a noninvasive optical technique to monitor the tissues blood flow changes. This technique measures the tissue blood flow index (BFI) by evaluating the decay rate of the autocorrelation function. The derived BFI is proportional to mean squared displacements of the red blood cells considered as the fast-dynamic scatterer component of tissue in time. However, biological tissue contains static scatterer component and slow-dynamic scatterer component which affect the decay rate of autocorrelation function and as a result the derived BFI. In this study, we assessed the fractional contribution of static, slow-dynamic and fast-dynamic scatterer components of a medium in the flow index derived by cw-DCS. The measurements performed on Agar-based phantom with tube showed that presence of static scatterer component and slow-dynamic scatterer component led to substantial underestimation (≈123%) of the flow index derived by Siegert relation, compared to effective diffusion coefficient of fast-dynamic scatterers components derived by modified Siegert relation and bi-exponential model. The less underestimation was observed for the corresponding parameters obtained from the liquid phantom measurements (≈25%) as well as during the forearm occlusion test and respiratory challenges (≈16%-26%).</jats:p>