Study of the microcirculation through microscopic techniques

This chapter reviews techniques and methodological aspects of investigating the microcirculation, with a particular emphasis on microscopic techniques. The history of intravital microscopy is briefly introduced, followed by a more detailed description of clinical capillaroscopy. In the last decades several technical innovations advanced the use of hand-held vital microscopes to assess the microcirculation in humans. Non-microscopic methods, such as Laser Doppler flowmetry, tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have been developed to study dynamic, flow-related aspects of the microcirculation.