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SIGNIFICANCE: Multi-laboratory initiatives are essential in performance assessment and standardization-crucial for bringing biophotonics to mature clinical use-to establish protocols and develop reference tissue phantoms that all will allow universal instrument comparison. AIM: The largest multi-laboratory comparison of performance assessment in near-infrared diffuse optics is presented, involving 28 instruments and 12 institutions on a total of eight experiments based on three consolidated protocols (BIP, MEDPHOT, and NEUROPT) as implemented on three kits of tissue phantoms. A total of 20 synthetic indicators were extracted from the dataset, some of them defined here anew. APPROACH: The exercise stems from the Innovative Training Network BitMap funded by the European Commission and expanded to include other European laboratories. A large variety of diffuse optics instruments were considered, based on different approaches (time domain/frequency domain/continuous wave), at various stages of maturity and designed for different applications (e.g., oximetry, spectroscopy, and imaging). RESULTS: This study highlights a substantial difference in hardware performances (e.g., nine decades in responsivity, four decades in dark count rate, and one decade in temporal resolution). Agreement in the estimates of homogeneous optical properties was within 12% of the median value for half of the systems, with a temporal stability of

Performance assessment and standardization are indispensable for instruments of clinical relevance in general and clinical instrumentation based on photon migration/diffuse optics in particular. In this direction, a multi-laboratory exercise was initiated with the aim of assessing and comparing their performances. 29 diffuse optical instruments belonging to 11 partner institutions of a European level Marie Curie Consortium BitMap1 were considered for this exercise. The enrolled instruments covered different approaches (continuous wave, CW; frequency domain, FD; time domain, TD and spatial frequency domain imaging, SFDI) and applications (e.g. mammography, oximetry, functional imaging, tissue spectroscopy). 10 different tests from 3 well-accepted protocols, namely, the MEDPHOT2 , the BIP3 , and the nEUROPt4 protocols were chosen for the exercise and the necessary phantoms kits were circulated across labs and institutions enrolled in the study. A brief outline of the methodology of the exercise is presented here. Mainly, the design of some of the synthetic descriptors, (single numeric values used to summarize the result of a test and facilitate comparison between instruments) for some of the tests will be discussed.. Future actions of the exercise aim at deploying these measurements onto an open data repository and investigating common analysis tools for the whole dataset.

Here we show a method of the lock-in amplifying near-infrared signals originating within a human brain. It implies using two 90-degree rotated source-detector pairs fixed on a head surface. Both pairs have a joint sensitivity region located towards the brain. A direct application of the lock-in technique on both signals results in amplifying common frequency components, e.g. related to brain cortex stimulation and attenuating the rest, including all components not related to the stimulation: e.g. pulse, instrumental and biological noise or movement artefacts. This is a self-driven method as no prior assumptions are needed and the noise model is provided by the interfering signals themselves. We show the theory (classical modified Beer-Lambert law and diffuse optical tomography approaches), the algorithm implementation and tests on a finite element mathematical model and in-vivo on healthy volunteers during visual cortex stimulation. The proposed hardware and algorithm complexity suit the entire spectrum of (continuous wave, frequency domain, time-resolved) near-infrared spectroscopy systems featuring real-time, direct, robust and low-noise brain activity registration tool. As such, this can be of special interest in optical brain computer interfaces and high reliability/stability monitors of tissue oxygenation.

A multi-laboratory exercise, involving 29 diffuse optical instruments, aimed at performance assessment of diffuse optics instruments on standardized protocols is presented. The overarching methodology and future actions will also be discussed.

Visual stimulation is one of the most commonly used paradigms for cerebral cortex function investigation. Experiments typically involve presenting to a volunteer a black-and-white checkerboard with contrast-reversing at a frequency of 4 to 16 Hz. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of the flickering frequency on the amplitude of changes in the concentration of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin. The hemoglobin concentrations were assessed with the use of a high resolution diffuse optical tomography method. Spatial distributions of changes in hemoglobin concentrations overlaying the visual cortex are shown for various stimuli frequencies. Moreover, the hemoglobin concentration changes obtained for different source-detector separations (from 1.5 to 5.4 cm) are presented. Our results demonstrate that the flickering frequency had a statistically significant effect on the induced oxyhemoglobin changes (p

A methodology for the assessment of the cerebral hemodynamic reaction to normotensive hypovolemia, reduction in cerebral perfusion and orthostatic stress leading to ischemic hypoxia and reduced muscular tension is presented. Most frequently, the pilots of highly maneuverable aircraft are exposed to these phenomena. Studies were carried out using the system consisting of a chamber that generates low pressure around the lower part of the body - LBNP (lower body negative pressure) placed on the tilt table. An in-house developed 6-channel NIRS system operating at 735 and 850 nm was used in order to assess the oxygenation of the cerebral cortex, based on measurements of diffusely reflected light in reflectance geometry. The measurements were carried out on a group of 12 active pilots and cadets of the Polish Air Force Academy and 12 healthy volunteers. The dynamics of changes in cerebral oxygenation was evaluated as a response to LBNP stimuli with a simultaneous rapid change of the tilt table angle. Parameters based on calculated changes of total hemoglobin concentration were proposed allowing to evaluate differences in reactions observed in control subjects and pilots/cadets. The results of orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis based on these parameters show that the subjects can be classified into their groups with 100% accuracy.

An intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) is correlated with cerebral perfusion, in a mechanism of reducing venous outflow. The elevated intra-abdominal pressure leads to an increase in the intracranial pressure and a decrease in the cerebral perfusion pressure. We studied the relationship between the IAP and the cerebral oxygenation with the use of the near infrared spectroscopy technique during a gynecological surgery. The changes in hemoglobin concentrations were analyzed in the time-frequency domain in the frequency band related to respiration. The measurements were carried out in 15 subjects who underwent laparoscopic surgery. During the laparoscopy, the intra-abdominal cavity was insufflated with CO(2), which caused a controlled increase in the IAP. It was observed that the amplitudes of respiration-related waves present in hemoglobin concentration signals show an increase of 1.5 to 8.5 times during elevation of the IAP by 15 mmHg.

Measurements of optical translucency of human skulls were carried out. An incandescent light source and a CCD camera were used to measure the distribution of light transmitted through the skull in 10 subjects post-mortem. We noticed that intra-individual differences in optical translucency may be up to 100 times but inter-individual translucency differences across the skull reach 105 times. Based on the measurement results, a “theoretical” experiment was simulated. Monte-Carlo calculations were used in order to evaluate the influence of the differences in optical translucency of the skull on results of NIRS measurements. In these calculations a functional stimulation was done, in which the oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentrations in the brain cortex change by 5μM and −5μM respectively. The maximal discrepancies between assumed hemoglobin concentration changes and hemoglobin concentration changes estimated with Monte-Carlo simulation may reach 50% depending of the translucency of the skull.