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Hypertension has a profound influence on the structure and function of blood vessels. Cerebral vessels undergo both structural and functional changes in hypertensive animals. However, dynamic changes of cerebrovasculature and the factors involved in this process are largely unknown. In this study, we explored the dynamic changes of vascular structure in hypertensive rats using novel synchrotron radiation angiography. Twenty-four spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and 24 Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats underwent synchrotron radiation (SR) angiography. Each group had 8 animals. We studied the cerebral vascular changes in SHR over a time period of 3–12-month and performed quantitative analysis. No vascular morphology differences between SHR and SD rats were observed in the early stage of hypertension. The number of twisted blood vessels in the front brain significantly increased at the 9- and 12-month observation time-points in the SHR compared to the SD rats (p < 0.01). The vessel density of the cortex and the striatum in SHR was consistently higher than that in SD rats at time points of 3-, 9-, and 12-month (p < 0.001). Vascular elasticity decreased both in SHR and SD rats with aging. There were statistically significant differences in the relative vascular elasticity of extracranial/intracranial internal carotid artery, middle cerebral artery, posterior cerebral artery and anterior cerebral artery between SHR and SD rats at 12-month (p < 0.01). We concluded that the dynamic vascular alterations detected by SR angiography provided novel imaging data for the study of hypertension in vivo. The longer the course of hypertension was, the more obvious the vascular differences between the SHR and the SD rats became.

X-ray ghost imaging with a crystal beam splitter has advantages in highly efficient imaging due to the simultaneous acquisition of signals from both the object beam and reference beam. However, beam splitting with a large field of view, uniform distribution and high correlation has been a great challenge up to now. Therefore, a dedicated beam splitter has been developed by optimizing the optical layout of a synchrotron radiation beamline and the fabrication process of a Laue crystal. A large field of view, consistent size, uniform intensity distribution and high correlation were obtained simultaneously for the two split beams. Modulated by a piece of copper foam upstream of the splitter, a correlation of 92% between the speckle fields of the object and reference beam and a Glauber function of 1.25 were achieved. Taking advantage of synthetic aperture X-ray ghost imaging (SAXGI), a circuit board of size 880 × 330 pixels was successfully imaged with high fidelity. In addition, even though 16 measurements corresponding to a sampling rate of 1% in SAXGI were used for image reconstruction, the skeleton structure of the circuit board can still be determined. In conclusion, the specially developed beam splitter is applicable for the efficient implementation of X-ray ghost imaging.

In order to study the influence on the mechanical properties caused by microstructure evolution of metal powder in extreme environment, 3D real-time observation of the microstructure evolution of Al-Ti mixed powder in high temperature and microwave compound fields was realized by using synchrotron radiation computerized topography (SR-CT) technique; the spatial resolution was enhanced to 0.37 μm/pixel through the designed equipment and the introduction of excellent reconstruction method for the first time. The process of microstructure evolution during sintering was clearly distinguished from 2D and 3D reconstructed images. Typical sintering parameters such as sintering neck size, porosity, and particle size of the sample were presented for quantitative analysis of the influence on the mechanical properties and the sintering kinetics during microwave sintering. The neck size-time curve was obtained and the neck growth exponent was 7.3, which indicated that surface diffusion was the main diffusion mechanism; the reason was the eddy current loss induced by the external microwave fields providing an additional driving force for mass diffusion on the particle surface. From the reconstructed images and the curve of porosity and average particle size versus temperature, it was believed that the presence of liquid phase aluminum accelerated the densification and particle growth.

To investigate the local micro-/nanoscale region in a large scale sample, an image reconstruction method for nanometer computed tomography (nano-CT) was proposed in this paper. In the algorithm, wavelets were used to localize the filtered-backprojection (FBP) algorithm because of its space-frequency localization property. After the implementation of the algorithm, two simulation local reconstruction experiments were performed to confirm its effectiveness. Three evaluation criteria were used in the experiments to judge the quality of the reconstructed images. The experimental results showed that the algorithm proposed in this paper performed best because (1) the quality of its results had improved 20%–30% compared to the results of FBP and 10%–30% compared to the results of another wavelet algorithm; (2) the new algorithm was stable under different circumstances. Besides, an actual reconstruction experiment was performed using real projection data that had been collected in a CT experiment. Two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) images of the sample were reconstructed. The microstructure of the sample could be clearly observed in the reconstructed images. Since much attention has been directed towards the nano-CT technique to investigate the microstructure of materials, this new wavelet-based local tomography algorithm could be considered as a meaningful effort.

The angioarchitecture is a fundamental aspect of brain development and physiology. However, available imaging tools are unsuited for non-destructive cerebral mapping of the functionally important three-dimensional (3D) vascular microstructures. To address this issue, we developed an ultra-high resolution 3D digitalized angioarchitectural map for rat brain, based on synchrotron radiation phase contrast imaging (SR-PCI) with pixel size of 5.92 µm. This approach provides a systematic and detailed view of the cerebrovascular anatomy at the micrometer level without any need for contrast agents. From qualitative and quantitative perspectives, the present 3D data provide a considerable insight into the spatial vascular network for whole rodent brain, particularly for functionally important regions of interest, such as the hippocampus, pre-frontal cerebral cortex and the corpus striatum. We extended these results to synchrotron-based virtual micro-endoscopy, thus revealing the trajectory of targeted vessels in 3D. The SR-PCI method for systematic visualization of cerebral microvasculature holds considerable promise for wider application in life sciences, including 3D micro-imaging in experimental models of neurodevelopmental and vascular disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying three-dimensional spatial distributions of pores and material compositions in samples is a key materials characterization challenge, particularly in samples where compositions are distributed across a range of length scales, and where such compositions have similar X-ray absorption properties, such as in coal. Consequently, obtaining detailed information within sub-regions of a multi-length-scale sample by conventional approaches may not provide the resolution and level of detail one might desire. Herein, an approach for quantitative high-definition determination of material compositions from X-ray local computed tomography combined with a data-constrained modelling method is proposed. The approach is capable of dramatically improving the spatial resolution and enabling finer details within a region of interest of a sample larger than the field of view to be revealed than by using conventional techniques. A coal sample containing distributions of porosity and several mineral compositions is employed to demonstrate the approach. The optimal experimental parameters are pre-analyzed. The quantitative results demonstrated that the approach can reveal significantly finer details of compositional distributions in the sample region of interest. The elevated spatial resolution is crucial for coal-bed methane reservoir evaluation and understanding the transformation of the minerals during coal processing. The method is generic and can be applied for three-dimensional compositional characterization of other materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]