Quantifying Local Strain Field and Deformation in Active Contraction of Bladder Using a Pretrained Transformer Model: A Speckle-Free Approach

TL;DR

This study introduces a speckle-free, transformer-based framework for quantifying local strain fields in bladder tissue, enabling accurate, non-invasive measurements during active contraction without artificial markers.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, zero-shot transformer model approach for tracking natural tissue textures, avoiding artifacts caused by artificial speckling in traditional methods.

Findings

Successfully tracked natural bladder textures during contraction

Captured heterogeneous deformation patterns in complex tissue folding

Detected significant anisotropy in bladder contraction directions

Abstract

Accurate quantification of local strain fields during bladder contraction is essential for understanding the biomechanics of bladder micturition, in both health and disease. Conventional digital image correlation (DIC) methods have been successfully applied to various biological tissues; however, this approach requires artificial speckling, which can alter both passive and active properties of the tissue. In this study, we introduce a speckle-free framework for quantifying local strain fields using a state-of-the-art, zero-shot transformer model, CoTracker3. We utilized a custom-designed, portable isotonic biaxial apparatus compatible with multiphoton microscopy (MPM) to demonstrate this approach, successfully tracking natural bladder lumen textures without artificial markers. Benchmark tests validated the method's high pixel accuracy and low strain errors. Our framework effectively captured heterogeneous deformation patterns, despite complex folding and buckling, which conventional DIC often fails to track. Application to in vitro active bladder contractions in four rat specimens (n=4) revealed statistically significant anisotropy (p<0.01), with higher contraction longitudinally compared to circumferentially. Multiphoton microscopy further illustrated and confirmed heterogeneous morphological changes, such as large fold formation during active contraction. This non-invasive approach eliminates speckle-induced artifacts, enabling more physiologically relevant measurements, and has broad applicability for material testing of other biological and engineered systems.