Patent ID: 8309346
Filing Date: 2012-11-13
Classification: A61B,G01N

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for non-destructively evaluating the functional capacity of a living human tissue in situ in an intact living human being, comprising: a component configured to stimulate a resting tissue to change its metabolism and become a stimulated tissue using a light stimulus; a light source configured to irradiate the resting and stimulated tissue with continuous linearly polarized excitation light sufficient to cause endogenous lipoamide dehydrogenase (LipDH) to fluoresce; a module configured to resolve the fluorescence of LipDH in the resting tissue into a first set of vector components and the fluorescence of LipDH in the stimulated tissue into a second set of vector components, wherein the first and second sets of vector components are parallel and perpendicular to a plane of polarization of the excitation light; and a computing device configured to: