METHOD FOR THE STUDY OF THE 3-DIMENSIONAL ORIENTATION OF THE NUCLEI OF MYOCARDIAL-CELLS IN FETAL HUMAN HEART BY MEANS OF CONFOCAL SCANNING LASER MICROSCOPY

A series of three-dimensional image analysis tools are used to measure the three-dimensional orientation of nuclei of myocardial cells. Conf ocal scanning laser microscopy makes it possible to acquire series of sections up to 100 mu m inside thick tissue sections. A mean orientati on vector of unit length is calculated for each segmented nucleus. The global orientation statistics are obtained by calculating the vectori al sum of the nuclear unit vectors. The final orientation is expressed by a mean azimuth angle, an elevation angle and a measure of the angu lar homogeneity. The method is illustrated for two different regions o f the myocardium (interventricular septum and papillary muscle) of a n ormal human fetal heart. This quantitative method will be used to asse ss and calibrate the information provided by polarized light microscop y.