Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy was used to noninvasively acquire videos of single-file flow through live human retinal parafoveal capillaries. Videos were analyzed offline to investigate capillary flow dynamics. Certain capillaries accounted for a clear majority of leukocyte traffic (Leukocyte-Preferred-Paths, LPPs), while other capillaries primarily featured plasma gap flow (Plasma-Gap-Capillaries, PGCs). LPPs may serve as a protective mechanism to prevent inactivated leukocytes from entering exchange capillaries, and PGCs may serve as relief valves to minimize flow disruption due to the presence of a leukocyte in a neighboring LPP.
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Tam et al. (2011) studied this question.
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