Resting-state functional connectivity measured by diffuse correlation spectroscopy

Near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is used to record spontaneous cerebral blood flow fluctuations in the frontal cortex. Nine adult subjects participated in the experiments, in which 8-minute spontaneous fluctuations were simultaneously recorded from the left and right dorsolateral and inferior frontal regions. Resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) was measured by the temporal correlation of the low frequency fluctuations. Our data shows the RSFC within the dorsolateral region is significantly stronger than that between the inferior and dorsolateral regions, in line with previous observations with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. This indicates that DCS is capable of investigating brain functional connectivity in terms of cerebral blood flow.