Time Resolved Optical Spectroscopy System for Cerebral Oxygenation Imaging

Optical methods from the near infrared range, in particular the time resolved near infrared spectroscopy offer a new non-invasive, real-time technique for monitoring of the blood perfusion and oxygenation in living tissue. The principle and instrumentation of the time resolved optical spectroscopy system for cerebral oxygenation imaging have been described. The system consists of two semiconductor diode lasers and four detection channels which allow for recording of distributions of times of flight of photons at four detection points on the surface of the tissue examined. In the presented configuration it allows recording with 16 source-detector pairs forming a 4times4 grid. Some preliminary results of the laboratory tests and experimental trials curried out with various tissue phantoms are presented