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Optical Biopsy: Toward Real-Time Spectroscopic Imaging and Diagnosis

Exploring diagnosing brain disease with quantum entanglement (Conference Presentation)

Enrique J. Galvez, Faith Williams, Baibhav Sharma, Aayam Bista, Behzad Khajavi, Jhonny Castrillón, Lingyan Shi, Sandra Mamani, Lin Zhang, Laura A. Sordillo, R. R. Alfano

Published Mar 9, 2020• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a study of a potential technique to diagnose brain disease using quantum-entangled twin photons. Our method consists of preparing polarization-entangled photon pairs and sending one member of each pair through brain tissue that is either healthy or suffering brain disease, such as Alzheimers, glioblastoma or other. The tissue imparts a decohering effect on the state of the light that we examine via quantum state tomography. Our preliminary experimental data shows a difference in the entanglement measures between healthy tissue and tissue bearing Alzheimers disease. We also explore an imaging technique of brain tissue based on quantum entanglement.

DOI
10.1117/12.2545447

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We present a study of a potential technique to diagnose brain disease using quantum-entangled twin photons. Our method consists of preparing polarization-entangled photon pairs and sending one member of each pair through brain tissue that is either healthy or suffering brain disease, such as Alzheimers, glioblastoma or other. The tissue imparts a decohering effect on the state of the light that we examine via quantum state tomography. Our preliminary experimental data shows a difference in the entanglement measures between healthy tissue and tissue bearing Alzheimers disease. We also explore an imaging technique of brain tissue based on quantum entanglement.
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We investigated the preservation of non-local correlations between polarization-entangled photons when one of them traveled through brain tissue slices of different thicknesses. Using down-converted photons at a wavelength of 802 nm minimized the absorption by the tissue. After the light passed through the tissue samples, we performed quantum state tomography to obtain quantitative measures of the entanglement. We found that entanglement is preserved to a surprising degree, and when it degrades, it does so following a particular path in a tangle versus linear-entropy graph. Such a trajectory reveals direct transfer of probability from entangled to mixed state.
There is interest in using photon entanglement in biomedical applications. In one application, polarization entangled photons pass through brain tissue. The effect of the brain tissue on the photon entanglement is measured via the decoherence that is imparted on the entangled state. Our current method to obtain a measure of the decoherence involves quantum state tomography, where a minimum of 16 measurements are used in conjunction with tomographic optimization to obtain the density matrix representing the state of the photons. In this work we report on a method to avoid tomographic optimization on behalf of a direct measurement of the elements of the density matrix. We make preliminary comparisons between the two methods.
Alzheimer's disease is a neurological ailment that worsens over time and gradually deteriorates memory and thinking abilities, eventually robbing individuals of their ability to perform even the simplest tasks independently. As the primary cause of dementia, Alzheimer's accounts for a significant majority of cases, affecting over 55 million individuals globally. To identify the biomarkers responsible for Alzheimer's disease, various scanning methods are employed. In the early stages of Alzheimer's, changes in the chemical composition of the brain have shown a correlation with the macular region of the eye. Optical imaging is a fast-developing discipline in medical research and clinical practice. It provides a non-invasive method of visualizing as well as diagnosing a variety of medical disorders. When combined with AI, it becomes a strong tool for detecting Alzheimer's disease in its infancy. Quantum computing is a revolutionary technology that is based on quantum physics. It is capable of revolutionizing healthcare. Beyond its applications in expediting drug development and enabling customized medicine, quantum computing also has the potential to unravel brain puzzles and improve medical imaging. This research investigates the use of quantum technology to unravel the enigma of Alzheimer's disease, particularly in its nascent stages.
Photon entanglement, the cornerstone of quantum correlations, provides a level of coherence that is not present in classical correlations. Harnessing it by study of its passage through organic matter may offer new possibilities for medical diagnosis technique. In this work, we study the preservation of photon entanglement in polarization, created by spontaneous parametric down-conversion, after one entangled photon propagates through multiphoton-scattering brain tissue slices with different thickness. The Tangle-Entropy (TS) plots show the strong preservation of entanglement of photons propagating in brain tissue. By spatially filtering the ballistic scattering of an entangled photon, we find that its polarization entanglement is preserved and non-locally correlated with its twin in the TS plots. The degree of entanglement correlates better with structure and water content than with sample thickness.