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Stokes-consistent computational polarimetric reconstruction for label-free imaging of nanoplastic-associated perturbations
Summary
Scientists developed a smarter imaging technique that uses light patterns (instead of dyes or stains) to detect how nanoplastics affect living organisms, testing it on tiny aquatic creatures called rotifers. The method successfully spotted changes in tissue linked to nanoplastic buildup, especially where these organisms digest food—an early step toward better tools for tracking how nanoplastics accumulate in living things. While this study was done in a simple aquatic animal rather than humans, it points toward future methods that could help researchers study nanoplastic exposure without needing invasive chemical labeling.
Polarimetric microscopy offers a label-free readout to probe anisotropy, scattering, and microstructural organization in biological systems, yet quantitative polarization observables become unreliable in low-signal aqueous imaging. In particular, the degree and angle of linear polarization are nonlinear functions of Stokes parameters and are therefore sensitive to noise, under-sampling, and channel-dependent distortions in division-of-focal-plane measurements. Here, we introduce a Stokes-consistent computational polarimetric reconstruction framework for recovering reliable linear polarization observables from low-fidelity aqueous measurements. The proposed Nano-PolarSRN (nano-polarimetric super-resolution network) reconstructs four polarization-resolved channels while constraining the solution in both the image and Stokesderived domains, thereby preserving intensity structure, degree of linear polarization (DoLP), and angle of polarization (AoP). Compared with intensity-supervised reconstruction, the Stokesconsistent framework improves structural fidelity and suppresses physically inconsistent DoLP and AoP artifacts. Applied to live marine rotifers exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics, the method reveals size-dependent polarization perturbations in digestive-vesicle-rich regions. Confocal fluorescence imaging independently confirms nanoplastic uptake, supporting the association between these label-free polarimetric signatures and nanoplastic uptake. This work establishes Stokes-consistent reconstruction as a computational optical strategy for quantitative label-free analysis of nanoplastic-associated perturbations in living aquatic organisms.