BACKGROUND: Perinatal stroke is a potentially debilitating injury, often under-diagnosed in the neonatal period. We conducted a
pilot study investigating the role of the portable, non-invasive brain monitoring technique, diffuse optical tomography (DOT), as an
early detection tool for infants with perinatal stroke.
METHODS: Four stroke-affected infants were scanned with a DOT system within the first 3 days of life and compared to four
healthy control subjects. Spectral power, correlation, and phase lag between interhemispheric low frequency (0.0055–0.3 Hz)
hemoglobin signals were assessed. Optical data analyses were conducted with and without magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-
guided stroke localization to assess the efficacy of DOT when used without stroke anatomical information.
RESULTS: Interhemispheric correlations of both oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration were significantly reduced in
the stroke-affected group within the very low (0.0055–0.0095 Hz) and resting state (0.01–0.08 Hz) frequencies (p < 0.003). There
were no interhemispheric differences for spectral power. These results were observed even without MRI stroke localization.
CONCLUSION: This suggests that DOT and correlation-based analyses in the low-frequency range can potentially aid the early
detection of perinatal stroke, prior to MRI acquisition. Additional methodological advances are required to increase the sensitivity
and specificity of this technique
