Untethered helmet mounted functional near infrared (fNIR) biomedical imaging for hematoma detection!

Custom designed untethered helmet mounted electronics and novel signal processing techniques are developed for early detection of hematoma caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI) using fNIR system. Modeling behavior of broadband (30-1000 MHz) frequency modulated near infrared (NIR) photons through a multi layer phantoms, representing human head with normal and abnormal brain optical parameters, are employed for accurate modeling of photon migration through inhomogeneous head. In this paper custom designed implementation of broadband free space optical transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) are used for comparison of predicted photon dynamics using finite element method (FEM) modeling and the measured insertion loss and phase in brain phantom for a given geometry and phantom optical parameters. Comparison between normal human head and abnormal activity when occlusion is embedded is also presented in this paper. This technique is helpful for inverse problems solving of extracting optical absorption and scattering parameters of biological turbid media. High sensitivity of broadband frequency modulation measurements builds confidence and could be used for optical parameter extraction using inverse problem solving and applies confidence in biomedical imaging.