AN OPTICAL SYSTEM FOR EPICARDIAL FLUORESCENCE IMAGING

绘制心外膜的电活动提供了重要的机制和诊断信息。传统上，这是通过放置在包裹心脏的“袜子”中的电极阵列来完成的。“光学映射”是一种新技术，涉及电压敏感染料以及光学和电子电路的使用。它是为了研究可兴奋细胞的电活动而开发的，与传统方法相比，它的主要优势在于它可以以高分辨率记录跨膜电压。该技术已成功应用于心外膜的小区域。我们建议开发用于全局心脏电生理光学标测的技术。我们打算使用光纤技术结合新的探测器设计和增强的软件技术来生成全心脏光学地图。所提出的技术是响应国家心肺和血液研究所关于该主题的征集，并将产生一种非常通用的设备来成像心脏的电活动，这将对大学以及制药和医疗设备行业的广泛生物医学科学家非常有用。建议的商业应用：有一个市场，几十个光学测绘单位每年出售的研究系统的大学。我们预计，一旦这项技术被制药和起搏器/除颤器设备行业接受，这个市场将大大扩大。

Mapping the electrical activity of the epicardium provides important mechanistic and diagnostic information. This has traditionally been done by an array of electrodes placed in a "sock" wrapped around the heart. "Optical mapping" is a new technique which involves the use of voltage sensitive dyes and optical and electronic circuitry. It was developed to study the electrical activity of excitable cells and has major advantage over traditional methods in that it can record transmembrane voltages with a high degree of resolution. This technology has been successfully applied to small regions of epicardium. We propose to develop the technology for global cardiac electrophysiological optical mapping. We intend to use fiber-optic technology coupled with a new detector design and enhanced software technology to generate whole-heart optical maps. The proposed technology is responsive to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institutes' solicitation on the topic and will result in a very versatile device to image the heart's electrical activity that will be of great use to a broad spectrum of biomedical scientists in universities, and in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: There is a market for several dozen optical mapping units a year to be sold as research systems for universities. We anticipate this market will be significantly larger once this technology has achieved the acceptance of the pharmaceutical and pacemaker/defibrillator device industry.