One of the major roles of the skin microcirculation is to supply oxygen and nutrition to the surrounding tissue.
Regardless of the close relationship between the microcirculation and the surrounding tissue, there are few non-invasive
methods that can evaluate both the microcirculation and its surrounding tissue at the same site. We visualized microcapillary
plexus structures in human skin using in vivo reflectance confocal-laser-scanning microscopy (CLSM),
Vivascope 3000® (Lucid Inc., USA) and Image J software (National Institutes of Health, USA) for video image
processing. CLSM is a non-invasive technique that can visualize the internal structure of the skin at the cellular level. In
addition to internal morphological information such as the extracellular matrix, our method reveals capillary structures
up to the depth of the subpapillary plexus at the same site without the need for additional optical systems. Video images
at specific depths of the inner forearm skin were recorded. By creating frame-to-frame difference images from the video
images using off-line video image processing, we obtained images that emphasize the brightness depending on changes
of intensity coming from the movement of blood cells. Merging images from different depths of the skin elucidates the
3-dimensional fine line-structure of the microcirculation. Overall our results show the feasibility of a non-invasive,
high-resolution imaging technique to characterize the skin microcirculation and the surrounding tissue.
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