KEYWORDS: Near infrared spectroscopy, Brain, Absorbance, Kinematics, Neuroimaging, Sensors, Data acquisition, Signal processing, Semiconductor lasers, Linear filtering
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a term that describes a group of motor impairment syndromes secondary to genetic and/or
acquired disorders of the developing brain. In the current study, NIRS and motion capture were used simultaneously to correlate the brain’s planning and execution activity during and with arm movement in healthy individual. The prefrontal region of the brain is non-invasively imaged using a custom built continuous-wave based near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system. The kinematics of the arm movement during the studies is recorded using an infrared based motion capture system, Qualisys. During the study, the subjects (over 18 years) performed 30 sec of arm movement followed by 30 sec rest for 5 times, both with their dominant and non-dominant arm. The optical signal acquired from NIRS system was processed to elucidate the activation and lateralization in the prefrontal region of participants. The preliminary results show difference, in terms of change in optical response, between task and rest in healthy adults. Currently simultaneous NIRS imaging and kinematics data are acquired in healthy individual and individual with CP in order to correlate brain activity to arm movement in real-time. The study has significant implication in elucidating the evolution in the functional activity of the brain as the physical movement of the arm evolves using NIRS. Hence the study has potential in augmenting the designing of training and hence rehabilitation regime for individuals with CP via kinematic monitoring and imaging brain activity.
Autism is a socio-communication brain development disorder. It is marked by degeneration in the ability to respond to
joint attention skill task, from as early as 12 to 18 months of age. This trait is used to distinguish autistic from nonautistic.
In this study Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is being applied for the first time to study the difference in
activation and connectivity in the frontal cortex of typically developing (TD) and autistic children between 4-8 years of
age in response to joint attention task. The optical measurements are acquired in real time from frontal cortex using
Imagent (ISS Inc.) - a frequency domain based NIRS system in response to video clips which engenders a feeling of joint
attention experience in the subjects. A block design consisting of 5 blocks of following sequence 30 sec joint attention
clip (J), 30 sec non-joint attention clip (NJ) and 30 sec rest condition is used. Preliminary results from TD child shows
difference in brain activation (in terms of oxy-hemoglobin, HbO) during joint attention interaction compared to the nonjoint
interaction and rest. Similar activation study did not reveal significant differences in HbO across the stimuli in,
unlike in an autistic child. Extensive studies are carried out to validate the initial observations from both brain activation
as well as connectivity analysis. The result has significant implication for research in neural pathways associated with
autism that can be mapped using NIRS.
Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) offers an invaluable tool to monitor the functionality of the brain. NIRS with its
high temporal resolution and good spatial resolution has been applied towards various area of brain research in order
to map the cortical regions of the brain. The present study is aimed at using NIRS to understand the functionality of
the temporal cortex in response to language-related tasks. A 32-channel NIRS system (Imagent ISS Inc.) is used to
perform experimental studies on 15 normal adults. A block-design based Word Expression and Word Reception
tasks were independently presented to the participants during the imaging study. Unlike past research where only
the brain activation was determined for language tasks, in the current study the activation, connectivity, and
lateralization in the temporal cortex are correlated. In the future, the work is focused to target the pediatric epileptic
populations, where understanding the temporal brain functionality in response to language is essential in pre-surgical
clinical environment.
Autism is a socio-communication brain development disorder. It is marked by degeneration in the ability to respond to
joint attention skill task, from as early as 12 to 18 months of age. This trait is used to distinguish autistic from nonautistic
populations. In this study, diffuse optical imaging is being used to study brain connectivity for the first time in
response to joint attention experience in normal adults. The prefrontal region of the brain was non-invasively imaged
using a frequency-domain based optical imager. The imaging studies were performed on 11 normal right-handed adults
and optical measurements were acquired in response to joint-attention based video clips. While the intensity-based
optical data provides information about the hemodynamic response of the underlying neural process, the time-dependent
phase-based optical data has the potential to explicate the directional information on the activation of the brain. Thus
brain connectivity studies are performed by computing covariance/correlations between spatial units using this
frequency-domain based optical measurements. The preliminary results indicate that the extent of synchrony and
directional variation in the pattern of activation varies in the left and right frontal cortex. The results have significant
implication for research in neural pathways associated with autism that can be mapped using diffuse optical imaging
tools in the future.
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