Speckle based configuration for simultaneous in vitro inspection of mechanical contractions of cardiac myocyte cells

In this manuscript we propose optical lensless configuration for a remote non-contact measuring of mechanical contractions of vast number of cardiac myocytes. All the myocytes were taken from rats, and the measurements were done in an in vitro mode. The optical method is based on temporal analysis of secondary reflected speckle patterns generated in lensless microscope configuration. The processing involves analyzing the movement and the change in the statistics of the generated secondary speckle patterns that are created on top of the cell culture when it is illuminated by a spot of laser beam. The main advantage of the proposed system is the ability to measure many cells simultaneously (approximately one thousand cells) and to extract the statistical data of their movement at once. The presented experimental results also include investigation the effect of isoproteranol on cells contraction process.