Development of the scanning system to detect the concentration of oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin by tracking the head

Abstract

We measure the concentration of oxy-, deoxy- and total hemoglobin by using the frequency-domain, near-infrared spectroscopy(NIRS) scanner. It is a non-invasive instrument that can provide real-time measurements of the changes in concentration. It can provide a diagnostic tool for the study of the brain in infants and children. However, it is difficult to apply it to the baby's head because of the contact of the probe on the soft baby's head. Therefore, we suggest the NIRS scanning system that can track the baby' head movement and detect NIRS parameters on the same position of the head. This system has three key components. The vision system performs the pattern matching for tracking the head by using the normalized cross correlation method with the target as a cross-line on the head during the diagnostic experiment. We can use the change of the position of the baby's head to re-target the light by the scanning system that uses four laser sources, a wavelength selector, and an x-y scanner. The detector system analyzes the resulting signal from the head using the diffusion model. Therefore, NIRS scanning system can provide a diagnostic tool to measure the changes of the NIRS parameters for the study of the baby's brain.