Abstract
Significance: High-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) has been shown to approach the resolution and localization accuracy of blood oxygen level dependent-functional magnetic resonance imaging in the adult brain by exploiting densely spaced, overlapping samples of the probed tissue volume, but the technique has to date required large and cumbersome optical fiber arrays.Aim: To evaluate a wearable HD-DOT system that provides a comparable sampling density to large, fiber-based HD-DOT systems, but with vastly improved ergonomics.Approach: We investigated the performance of this system by replicating a series of classic visual stimulation paradigms, carried out in one highly sampled participant during 15 sessions to assess imaging performance and repeatability.Results: Hemodynamic response functions and cortical activation maps replicate the results obtained with larger fiber-based systems. Our results demonstrate focal activations in both oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin with a high degree of repeatability observed across all sessions. A comparison with a simulated low-density array explicitly demonstrates the improvements in spatial localization, resolution, repeatability, and image contrast that can be obtained with this high-density technology.Conclusions: The system offers the possibility for minimally constrained, spatially resolved functional imaging of the human brain in almost any environment and holds particular promise in enabling neuroscience applications outside of the laboratory setting. It also opens up new opportunities to investigate populations unsuited to traditional imaging technologies.
Highlights
The investigation of human brain function has made dramatic progress since the introduction and development of functional neuroimaging
We introduced a new High-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) system (LUMO, Gowerlabs, Ltd.) that is built upon a modular design architecture and provided dense DOT sampling in a compact and ergonomic form
We demonstrated the performance of the system by replicating a series of classical visual paradigms which have been previously validated with fiber-based HD-DOT7,42 and undertaking test–retest comparisons in a single, extensively imaged individual
Summary
The investigation of human brain function has made dramatic progress since the introduction and development of functional neuroimaging. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have been at the forefront of this development, but they are not free of limitations. Both impose significant constraints on the mobility of participants, which hinders their application in challenging populations such as infants and in the study of neural processes and behaviors that involve movement. Owing to the large, fixed nature of MRI and PET equipment, and the requirement on the participant to lie flat, it is very difficult to study the brain in everyday scenarios, such as during face-to-face conversations
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