Evaluation of liver function and electroacupuncture efficacy of animals with alcoholic liver injury by the novel imaging methods

Imaging methods to evaluate hepatic microcirculation (HM) and liver function (LF) by directly monitoring overall liver tissue remain lacking. This study establish imaging methods for LF that combines Laser speckle perfusion imaging (LSPI) and in vivo optical imaging (IVOI) technologies to investigate changes of hepatic microcirculation and reserve function in the animals gavaged with 50% ethanol (15 ml/kg·bw) for a model of acute alcoholic liver injury (ALI), and for evaluation of electroacupuncture (EA) effect. The liver blood perfusion and indocyanine green (ICG) distribution were observe by LSPI and IVOI separately. After EA, the livers were collected to measure the levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), thromboxane A (TXA2), prostacyclin (PGI2) and endothelin (ET). The acquisitions of newly established LSPI of liver and ICG in vivo fluorescence imaging (ICG-IVFI), combining the results of other indexes showed: hepatic microcirculation perfusion (HMP) significantly reduced, ICG metabolism reduced, and ALT/AST increased in animal model with acute ALI. EA can reverse these changes. The use of LSPI of liver and ICG-IVFI, which was novel imaging methods for LF established in this study, could display the LF characteristics of ALI and the EA efficacy.