Novel Non-invasive Optical Monitoring of Brain Haemodynamics and Metabolism Following Acute Brain Injury

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Following severe head injury and brain haemorrhage, one of the key difficulties facing clinicians is knowing whether we are supplying the injured brain with adequate levels of blood and oxygen, and knowing whether that oxygen is being used effectively. Existing methods of monitoring are either invasive (involving insertion of probes in to the brain) and only monitor a small portion of injured tissue, or do not provide information in a timely fashion, and require the dangerous transfer of unwell patients to remote scanning units.NIRS is a non-invasive method that involves shining light through tissue, and analysing the characteristics of that light to deduce changes in the concentration of important molecules within that tissue; two such molecules are haemoglobin - involved in the carriage of oxygen - and cytochrome oxidase - which is crucial to energy production within cells. I wish to use a novel combination of NIRS techniques in healthy volunteers and patients who have suffered severe head injuries and brain haemorrhages in order to look at changes in haemoglobin and cytochrome oxidase. This knowledge will be useful in characterising the nature of brain injury, and may lead to the development of new clinical monitors in order to guide clinical treatment.