Using fNIRS in clinical applications
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) can measure relative concentration changes in oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin, which reflect local brain activity. fNIRS can be used in a variety of application areas to study the brain in different conditions and experiments. Due to its technical advantages, fNIRS is increasingly applied in clinical research, to assess neural activity of patients in various fields.
Why use fNIRS in clinical applications?
To perform research in medical applications and with patients, comfort, safety and reliability is crucial. Especially when compared to other neuroimaging modalities such as fMRI, fNIRS comes with various advantage making it a suitable technique for use in clinical research.
Non-invasiveness: fNIRS can assess neural activity non-invasively and safely.
Fast and easy usage: Compared to other modalities, fNIRS can be setup and applied fast and relatively easy. This can reduce application time for both patient and researcher.
Freedom: fNIRS can be completely portable and wireless, allowing for measurements in every setting, for instance at bedside, or even during movement or exercise performance, without being limited to a scanner. This allows for enhanced freedom for clinicians and patients, and increases application possibilities.
Reliability: fNIRS is relatively insensitive for motion artifacts in comparison to other imaging techniques, which can help achieving reliable signal. This enables patients to move during measurements, without the requirement to sit completely still.
Comfort: fNIRS is light weight, flexible and wearable. Hence, it enables shorter and longer measurements, still offering comfort for patients. This makes it a suitable tool to measure brain activity also in sensitive subjects, such as infants or the elderly.
Due to these technical features and resulting advantages, fNIRS can be safely and reliably applied in patients of all ages, genders and origins in various settings and applications.
In which clinical fields can fNIRS be used?
Alternation of brain activity can play a role in clinical population suffering from a variety of diseases / disorders in different medical fields. fNIRS offers the possibility to assess neural activity, and hence it be used to study the brain in various application areas and diseases that can affect the brain. fNIRS finds for instance application in psychiatry, neurology, rehabilitation, geriatrics, or neonatology / pediatrics, but is not limited to that.
For which purposes can fNIRS be applied in clinical research?
Measuring brain activity alternations and detection of diseases
Several disorders can affect the brain and its neural function. fNIRS has previously been applied to assess alternations in brain activity of patients with various disorders compared to healthy subjects. Assessing differences in brain activity between clinical and healthy subjects can give insides into the mechanisms of diseases, point out possible therapeutic strategies, and show diagnostic potential. Previous studies assessed the use of fNIRS as an adjunct detection tool to identify diseased populations in for instance psychiatric (e.g. depression, schizophrenia, ADHD) and neurological (e.g. mild cognitive impairment) patients.
Study examples: Guevara et al. investigated the use of fNIRS and machine learning to detect Parkinson’s Disease.
Yi et al. performed a study to assess the potential of combined fNIRS-EEG and vector machine learning for the automatic diagnosis of depression.
Assessing the effect of treatment strategies
When introducing new treatment or therapy strategies for a clinical population, it is crucial to investigate, if they lead to a positive effect or improvement for patients, also on a neural level. fNIRS was previously applied to assess the effects of treatment, such as non-invasive brain stimulation (tDCS, TMS), physical rehabilitation programs, or medicines/supplements, by measuring and comparing brain activity in local regions before, during, and after intervention for patients suffering of different diseases.
Study examples:Beretta et al. assessed if transcranial electrical stimulation can improve postural response in Parkinson’s patients
Sun et al. examined the effects of game-based high-intensity interval training on for instance executive function in children with ADHD
MediBrite — Portable Medical NIRS device
The MediBrite is the first European portable medical NIRS device that is CE certified according to MDR (EU) 2017/745. The MediBrite is completely portable, and lightweight, which enables free movement and comfortable measurements of brain activity using fNIRS. The device includes superior features to ensure high and reliable signal quality, but is still focusses on ease of use and quick application. Taken together, the MediBrite is the perfect fit for clinical research in various application areas, to measure neural activity from subjects of any age, gender, and race.
In this webinar, Dr. Edgar Guevara from CONACYT-Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi explains how fNIRS can be used to measure brain activity in patients with Parkinson's Research. Presenting his findings on differences in brain activity of healthy and diseased subjects, as well as the potential detection of PD using fNIRS and machine learning, he demonstrates the application of fNIRS in clinical research.
NIRS made easy
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To provide professional intensive care specifically fit to cure COVID-19, hospitals need the appropriate space and equipment. Health care professionals have been working with limited resources in extreme environments but knowledge and experience is rapidly expanding. Several institutes have been implementing NIRS to study the endothelial and microvascular dysfunction to support the development of targeted and individualized therapies.