In vivo detection of epileptic brain tissue using static fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

Diffuse reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy are used to detect histopathological abnormalities of an epileptic brain in a human subject study. Static diffuse reflectance and fluorescence spectra are acquired from normal and epileptic brain areas, defined by electrocorticography (ECoG), from pediatric patients undergoing epilepsy surgery. Biopsy specimens are taken from the investigated sites within an abnormal brain. Spectral analysis reveals significant differences in diffuse reflectance spectra and the ratio of fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectra from normal and epileptic brain areas defined by ECoG and histology. Using these spectral differences, tissue classification models with accuracy above 80% are developed based on linear discriminant analysis. The differences between the diffuse reflectance spectra from the normal and epileptic brain areas observed in this study are attributed to alterations in the static hemodynamic characteristics of an epileptic brain, suggesting a unique association between the histopathological and the hemodynamic abnormalities in an epileptic brain.