Improved spatial speckle contrast model for tissue blood flow imaging: effects of spatial correlation among neighboring camera pixels.

Significance: Speckle contrast analysis is the basis of laser speckle imaging (LSI), a simple, inexpensive, noninvasive technique used in various fields of medicine and engineering. A common application of LSI is the measurement of tissue blood flow. Accurate measurement of speckle contrast is essential to correctly measure blood flow. Variables, such as speckle grain size and camera pixel size, affect the speckle pattern and thus the speckle contrast.

Aim: We studied the effects of spatial correlation among adjacent camera pixels on the resulting speckle contrast values.

Approach: We derived a model that accounts for the potential correlation of intensity values in the common experimental situation where the speckle grain size is larger than the camera pixel size. phantom experiments were performed to test the model.

Results: Our spatial correlation model predicts that speckle contrast first increases, then decreases as the speckle grain size increases relative to the pixel size. This decreasing trend opposes what is observed with a standard speckle contrast model that does not consider spatial correlation. Experimental data are in good agreement with the predictions of our spatial correlation model.

Conclusions: We present a spatial correlation model that provides a more accurate measurement of speckle contrast, which should lead to improved accuracy in tissue blood flow measurements. The associated correlation factors only need to be calculated once, and open-source software is provided to assist with the calculation.