In-vivo spinal nerve sensing in MISS using Raman spectroscopy

Hao Chen; Weiliang Xu; Neil Broderick

doi:10.1117/12.2218783

16 April 2016 In-vivo spinal nerve sensing in MISS using Raman spectroscopy

Hao Chen, Weiliang Xu, Neil Broderick

Proceedings Volume 9802, Nanosensors, Biosensors, and Info-Tech Sensors and Systems 2016; 98021L (2016) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2218783
Event: SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Abstract

In modern Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery (MISS), lack of visualization and haptic feedback information are the main obstacles. The spinal cord is a part of the central nervous system (CNS). It is a continuation of the brain stem, carries motor and sensory messages between CNS and the rest of body, and mediates numerous spinal reflexes. Spinal cord and spinal nerves are of great importance but vulnerable, once injured it may result in severe consequences to patients, e.g. paralysis. Raman Spectroscopy has been proved to be an effective and powerful tool in biological and biomedical applications as it works in a rapid, non-invasive and label-free way. It can provide molecular vibrational features of tissue samples and reflect content and proportion of protein, nucleic acids lipids etc. Due to the distinct chemical compositions spinal nerves have, we proposed that spinal nerves can be identified from other types of tissues by using Raman spectroscopy. Ex vivo experiments were first done on samples taken from swine backbones. Comparative spectral data of swine spinal cord, spinal nerves and adjacent tissues (i.e. membrane layer of the spinal cord, muscle, bone and fatty tissue) are obtained by a Raman micro-spectroscopic system and the peak assignment is done. Then the average spectra of all categories of samples are averaged and normalized to the same scale to see the difference against each other. The results verified the feasibility of spinal cord and spinal nerves identification by using Raman spectroscopy. Besides, a fiber-optic Raman sensing system including a miniature Raman sensor for future study is also introduced. This Raman sensor can be embedded into surgical tools for MISS.

Citation Download Citation

Hao Chen, Weiliang Xu, and Neil Broderick "In-vivo spinal nerve sensing in MISS using Raman spectroscopy", Proc. SPIE 9802, Nanosensors, Biosensors, and Info-Tech Sensors and Systems 2016, 98021L (16 April 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2218783

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