Noninvasive cerebral blood flow sensing in humans in vivo using spatial correlations in parallel near-infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

Optical methods can provide noninvasive approach for continuous cerebral blood flow (CBF) monitoring in humans in vivo. Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is an established modality for qualitative CBF monitoring. DCS decodes the CBF from an analysis of the temporal correlations of the light scattered by the tissue. This, however, requires ultra-fast, generating vast amount of data to be processed. Instead of rapidly sensing temporal correlations, we can decode sample dynamics by quantifying speckle contrast, which is inversely proportional to the blood flow. Here, we analyze such an approach in the continuous-wave parallel interferometric near-infrared spectroscopy (CW-πNIRS).