Medical Near-Infrared Imaging

Abstract

Introduction The use of near-infrared light in functional medical imaging has gained increasing interest during recent years. Techniques using near-infrared light for imaging can be used to study, e.g., hemodynamic responses on the cortex. Brain activation measurements can be performed using, e.g., MEG or fMRI, which, however, require heavy instrumentation. In medical near-infrared imaging, the instrumentation can be made quite small in size and the costs can also be kept relatively low, which makes portable devices and the use of the technique for long-time monitoring possible. Due to no significant interference with biomagnetic measurements, the method can be combined with other modalities. Therefore, near-infrared imaging is an interesting alternative in performing or verifying brain activation measurements. In the following, we first describe the principal idea of medical near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy. We then outline the different measurement techniques and some aspect