Technique for In-Vivo Measurements of Heart Deformation Using Digital Image Correlation

Many techniques used to measure the deformation of biological tissue are inadequate for measuring deformations of hearts in vivo. Bull Frogs (Rana Catesbeiana) were double-pithed and dissected to expose the amphibian heart for the measurements conducted in this study. White titanium dioxide powder and black charcoal were applied to the surface of the heart to create an artificial surface pattern with high contrast that does not react with the heart muscle or mask surface details. This pattern was then used in conjunction with three dimensional Digital Image Correlation (DIC) to measure full field deformations of the heart through several cardiac cycles. These deformations were measured with a spatial resolution of approximately 0.4 µm and temporal resolution of 50 Hz.