TIME-DEPENDENT CONTRAST FUNCTIONS FOR QUANTITATIVE IMAGING IN TIME-RESOLVED TRANSILLUMINATION EXPERIMENTS

We have developed a methodology that can be used in reconstruction alg orithms to quantify the optical coefficients and the geometrical cross section of a weakly abnormal optical target embedded in an otherwise homogeneous medium. This novel procedure uses different time-dependent point-spread functions to analyze the diffusive and absorptive contra sts obtained from time-of-flight measurements. Data obtained from time -resolved transillumination of a tissue like phantom are used to test the accuracy of this new deconvolution methodology.