A compact time-domain diffuse optical tomography system for cortical neuroimaging

Recent years have witnessed a rise in research utilizing neuroimaging for precision neuromedicine, but clinical translation has been hindered by scalability and cost. Time-domain functional near infrared spectroscopy (TD-fNIRS), the gold standard of optical neuroimaging techniques, offers a unique opportunity in this domain since it provides superior depth sensitivity and enables resolution of absolute properties unlike its continuous wave counterparts. However, current TD systems have limited commercial availability, slow sampling rates, and sparse head coverage. Our team has overcome the technical challenges involved in developing a whole-head time-domain diffuse optical tomography (TD-DOT) system. Here, we present the system characterization results using standardized protocols and compare them with other state-of-the-art systems. Furthermore, we showcase the system performance in retrieving cortical activation maps during standard hemodynamic, sensory, and motor tasks. A combination of the system performance, signal quality, and ease of use can enable future studies aimed at investigating TD-DOT clinical applications.