IDR - Enhanced Near-Infrared Monitoring of Brain Function in Infants

0931687伯格这个项目旨在改善近红外光的使用，以研究婴儿的大脑活动。尽管目前监测婴儿大脑活动的光学方法显示出了希望，但许多校正不良的变量（物理，生理和解剖）仍然破坏了太多婴儿参与者的数据。通过研究团队在生物光子学、大脑和认知科学以及儿科学方面的专业知识的结合，噪声源将减少到可以对婴儿进行常规扫描的水平。使用的方法将是近红外光谱法（NIRS），它测量头皮和大脑中血液对光吸收的变化。仪器将包括专用的“头皮专用”通道，其源-检测器间隔（~5 mm）太短，对大脑信号不敏感。当从标准通道（具有20-35 mm的间隔）中减去这些通道的读出之一时，许多生理噪声被消除，并且与刺激相关的激活变得更容易观察。研究人员为成年人自制的校正近红外光谱（C-NIRS）系统将被重新构造用于婴儿研究，并通过更多的源和探测器进行增强，从而能够从刺激区域进行测量并同时监测“控制”区域。这种规模的仪器设计有专用的近通道噪声抑制将是第一次。与此同时，将开发一种更灵活的硅基头带，以适应一系列头部形状，对婴儿来说既舒适又安全，并减少数据中运动伪影的幅度。新仪器将在60名健康、警觉的婴儿参与者（6-9个月）的队列中进行测试，沿着缺乏校正通道的商用近红外仪器。测量协议将集中于经过充分研究的视觉和听觉刺激范例。生理噪声和运动伪影的减少应产生更高的“命中率”的有意义的数据运行使用C-NIRS仪器比传统的NIRS，从而建立C-NIRS作为一个有价值的工具，在阿森纳的认知科学家研究婴儿的发展。

0931687BergerThis project aims to improve the use of near-infrared light for studying infants' brain activity. Although current optical methods of monitoring brain activity in infants show promise, many poorly-corrected variables (physical, physiological, and anatomical) still corrupt the data from too many infant participants. Through the research team's combination of expertise in biophotonics, brain and cognitive sciences, and pediatrics, the sources of noise will be reduced to levels where meaningful scans can be performed on babies routinely. The method used will be near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which measures changes in the absorption of light by blood in the scalp and brain. The instrumentation will include dedicated "scalp-only" channels whose source-detector separations (~5 mm) are too short to be sensitive to brain signals. When one of these channels' readout is subtracted from standard channels (with separations of 20-35 mm), much physiological noise is cancelled, and stimulus related activations become easier to observe. The researchers' home-built corrected-near infrared-spectroscopy (C-NIRS) system for adults will be restructured for infant studies and enhanced with more sources and detectors, enabling measurements from a stimulated region and concurrent monitoring of a "control" region. An instrument of this scale designed with dedicated near-channel noise-suppression will be the first of its kind. In parallel, a more flexible silicone-based headband will be developed to fit a range of head shapes, be comfortable and safe for infants, and reduce the amplitude of motion artifacts in the data. The new instrument will be tested on a cohort of 60 healthy, alert infant participants (age 6-9 mos.), along with a commercial near-infrared instrument that lacks correction channels.Measurement protocols will focus on well-studied visual and auditory stimulation paradigms. The reductions in physiological noise and motion artifacts should yield a higher "hit rate" of meaningful data runs using the C-NIRS instrument than for traditional NIRS, thereby establishing C-NIRS as a valuable tool in the arsenal of the cognitive scientist studying infant development.