The University of Western Ontario

Published purpose

Cerebral oxidative metabolism is a sensitive biomarker of brain health and the Diop lab at The University of Western Ontario (Western University) has demonstrated that it can be noninvasively monitored in neonates with nearinfrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Nevertheless, extending the technique to adults remains a challenge because the noninvasive NIRS probes must be placed on the skin; therefore, light must travel through the scalp and thick adult skull before reaching the brain, resulting in significant signal contamination. The Project will develop a novel NIRS technique that uses safe pulses of light to probe the brain, and an advanced quantum detector to precisely measure the time it takes for each photon to travel through the head. Based on the equivalence between time and distance, photons that are detected long after the laser pulses have travelled longer distance and have a high chance of probing the brain. The technique will be validated using tissue mimicking phantoms and a pig model of the adult head.