Polarimetric techniques for the structural studies and diagnosis of brain

Abstract The polarimetric techniques are used in various biomedical applications for a non-contact and fast diagnosis of tissue that is known as optical biopsy approach. These optical modalities provide relevant information on micro-architecture of biological tissue and its alterations induced by different diseases, thus, helping in staging and precise delineation of the pathology zones. In this review, we summarize the work of different research groups on using polarized light for brain tissue studies. This includes the investigations of polarimetric properties of brain tissue (both scattering and optical anisotropy) for brain connectome reconstruction, the visualization of in-plane brain fiber tracts for brain tumor contrast enhancement during neurosurgery, and the histopathology analysis for disease staging in Alzheimer’s subjects. We discuss also further perspectives for the pre-clinical studies of brain with polarized light.