3D-deep optical learning: a multimodal and multitask reconstruction framework for optical molecular tomography

Optical molecular tomography (OMT) is an emerging imaging technique. To date, the poor universality of reconstruction algorithms based on deep learning for various imaged objects and optical probes limits the development and application of OMT. In this study, based on a new mapping representation, a multimodal and multitask reconstruction framework-3D deep optical learning (3DOL), was presented to overcome the limitations of OMT in universality by decomposing it into two tasks, optical field recovery and luminous source reconstruction. Specifically, slices of the original anatomy (provided by computed tomography) and boundary optical measurement of imaged objects serve as inputs of a recurrent convolutional neural network encoded parallel to extract multimodal features, and 2D information from a few axial planes within the samples is explicitly incorporated, which enables 3DOL to recognize different imaged objects. Subsequently, the optical field is recovered under the constraint of the object geometry, and then the luminous source is segmented by a learnable Laplace operator from the recovered optical field, which obtains stable and high-quality reconstruction results with extremely few parameters. This strategy enable 3DOL to better understand the relationship between the boundary optical measurement, optical field, and luminous source to improve 3DOL's ability to work in a wide range of spectra. The results of numerical simulations, physical phantoms, and in vivo experiments demonstrate that 3DOL is a compatible deep-learning approach to tomographic imaging diverse objects. Moreover, the fully trained 3DOL under specific wavelengths can be generalized to other spectra in the 620-900 nm NIR-I window.