Abstract:
A 3D reconstruction microscope has been built in order to investigate the structural details of the airway tree and the vasculature of mouse lungs. The objective is to create an anatomically correct finite element model of a mouse lung in order to validate results from simulations obtained using an existing model of the human lung. The 3D reconstruction microscope consists of a fully automated scanning stage, a vibratome and a structured light optical microscope. Structured light microscopy is a new approach to optical sectioning of tissue and offers several advantages over confocal microscopy.