Long-Term Changes in Optical Properties (μ_a, μ'_s, μ_eff and DPF) of Human Head Tissue During Functional Neuroimaging...

Frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (FD-NIRS) enables to measure absolute optical properties (i.e. the absorption coefficient, μ_a, and the reduced scattering coefficient, [Formula: see text]) of the brain tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate how the optical properties changed during the course of a functional NIRS experiment. The analyzed dataset comprised of FD-NIRS measurements of 14 healthy subjects (9 males, 5 females, aged: 33.4 ± 10.5 years, range: 24-57 years old). Each measurement lasted 33 min, i.e. 8 min baseline in darkness, 10 min intermittent light stimulation, and 15 min recovery in darkness. Optical tissue properties were obtained bilaterally over the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and visual cortex (VC) with FD-NIRS (Imagent, ISS Inc., USA). Changes in μ_a and [Formula: see text] were directly measured and two parameters were calculated, i.e. the differential pathlength factor (DPF) and the effective attenuation coefficient (μ_eff). Differences in the behavior of the optical changes were observed when comparing group-averaged data versus single datasets: no clear overall trend was presented in the group data, whereas a clear long-term trend was visible in almost all of the single measurements. Interestingly, the changes in [Formula: see text] statistically significantly correlated with μ_a, positively in the PFC and negatively in the VC. Our analysis demonstrates that all optical brain tissue properties (μ_a, [Formula: see text], μ_eff and DPF) change during these functional neuroimaging experiments. The change in [Formula: see text] is not random but follows a trend, which depends on the single experiment and measurement location. The change in the scattering properties of the brain tissue during a functional experiment is not negligible. The assumption [Formula: see text] ≈ const during an experiment is valid for group-averaged data but not for data from single experiments.