High-speed optical coherence imaging: towards the structure and the physiology of living tissue

Recently rapid development of ultrahigh speed optical coherence tomography (OCT) instruments have been observed. This imaging modality enables performing cross-sectional in vivo imaging of biological samples with speeds of more than 100,000,000 axial scans per second. This progress has been achieved by the introduction of Fourier domain detection techniques to OCT instruments. High-speed imaging capabilities lifts the primary limitation of early OCT technology by giving access to in vivo 3-D volumetric reconstructions in large scales within reasonable time constraints. New perspectives for existing OCT applications has been added by creating new instrumentation including the functional imaging. The latter shows a potential to differentiate tissue pathologies via metabolic properties or functional responses.