(Press-News.org) WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – One of the main techniques for measuring and monitoring mental activity, called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), can often be impaired because a person's hair gets in the way. But now, thanks to a team of researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas at Arlington, a novel device called a "brush optrode" is providing increased sensitivity with fiber tips designed to thread through hair to enhance scalp contact.
Details of the device will be presented at the Optical Society's (OSA) 94th annual meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO) 2010, at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, N.Y., from Oct. 24.
fNIRS is a noninvasive optical technique that measures oxygen levels in the brain to chart neurological activity. The difference between oxygenated hemoglobin and deoxygenated hemoglobin can be used as a correlate of brain activity. Using fNIRS, this difference in blood oxygen level is determined using a relative spectroscopic measurement at two near infrared wavelengths.
"Using light to measure a person's thinking pattern has numerous advantages over EEGs, including ease of use, reliability, cost, portability and MRI compatibility," says Duncan MacFarlane, professor of electrical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas.
"The conventional fibers used in fNIRS systems terminate in a large, flat bundle, and it is easy for a patient's hair to get in the way and block the signal," he explains. "So we developed a new tip for the fNIRS fibers -- a brush optrode that slides the fibers between the hair follicles. Signal levels increase 3- to 5-fold, and patients report that the brush optrode is considerably more comfortable than the conventional fiber ends. And the brush optrode is easier to set up, which saves time and money."
This research is expected to open the door to portable, easy-to-use, high-density optical scanning of brain activity. For example, the University of Texas researchers' work focuses on the imaging of changes in cortical plasticity as a function of impairment severity in children with cerebral palsy. According to Georgios Alexandrakis, a member of the UT Arlington research team, the newly developed optrodes could also be potentially useful to a variety of fNIRS projects, including the evaluation of recovery from stroke, changes in brain activity in Alzheimer's patients, the perception of pain, and for assessing developmental changes in normal and impaired pediatric populations.
###
The presentation, "Improved fNIRS Using a Novel Brush Optrode" is at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 26.
About the Meeting
Frontiers in Optics 2010 is OSA's 94th Annual Meeting and is being held together with Laser Science XXVI, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Laser Science (DLS). The two meetings unite the OSA and APS communities for five days of quality, cutting-edge presentations, fascinating invited speakers and a variety of special events spanning a broad range of topics in physics, biology and chemistry. FiO 2010 will also offer a number of Short Courses designed to increase participants' knowledge of a specific subject while offering the experience of insightful teachers. An exhibit floor featuring leading optics companies will further enhance the meeting.
Useful Links:
Meeting home page
http://www.frontiersinoptics.com/
Conference program
http://www.frontiersinoptics.com/ConferenceProgram/default.aspx
Searchable abstracts
http://www.abstractsonline.com/viewer/?mkey=%7BD58D07D1%2D61B6%2D42D6%2D8819%2DFCF66F28A08B%7D
EDITOR'S NOTE: A Press Room for credentialed press and analysts will be located in Aqueduct AB of the Rochester Riverside Convention Center, Sunday through Thursday. Those interested in obtaining a press badge for FiO should contact OSA's Lyndsay Basista at +1 202.416.1930 or lbasista@osa.org.
About OSA
Uniting more than 106,000 professionals from 134 countries, the Optical Society (OSA) brings together the global optics community through its programs and initiatives. Since 1916 OSA has worked to advance the common interests of the field, providing educational resources to the scientists, engineers and business leaders who work in the field by promoting the science of light and the advanced technologies made possible by optics and photonics. OSA publications, events, technical groups and programs foster optics knowledge and scientific collaboration among all those with an interest in optics and photonics. For more information, visit www.osa.org.
END
PHILADELPHIA (October 19, 2010)—Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), an aggressive and rare malignancy, is often initially misdiagnosed as an infection or rash. However, getting the correct diagnosis quickly is critical for patients because the disease spreads beyond the breast in a matter of just days or weeks. With that in mind, leading specialists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Fox Chase Cancer Center have written a review of the current scientific and medical understanding of IBC, which includes key information on diagnosis, imaging, treatment, ...
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 19, 2010 -- The Cold Triple Axis spectrometer, a new addition to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor and a complementary tool to other neutron scattering instruments at ORNL, has entered its commissioning phase.
The CTAX uses "cold" neutrons from the HFIR cold source to study low-energy magnetic excitations in materials. Cold neutrons are slower than their "thermal" neutron counterparts, and thus perfect for probing low-energy dynamics.
The instrument, which moves by way of air pads on an epoxy surface known as the "dance ...
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - While America continues to become more religiously diverse, the belief that America is a Christian nation is growing more intense, according to research from Purdue University.
"America is still predominantly Christian, but it is more diverse than ever," said Jeremy Brooke Straughn, an assistant professor of sociology who studies national identity. "At the same time, many people feel even more strongly that America is a Christian country than they did before the turn of the century. This is especially true for Americans who say they are Christians ...
PULLMAN, Wash. - For the chance to watch the sun rise over Olympus Mons, or maybe take a stroll across the vast plains of the Vastitas Borealis, would you sign on for a one-way flight to Mars?
It's a question that gives pause to even Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University associate professor, who, with colleague Paul Davies, a physicist and cosmologist from Arizona State University, argues for precisely such a one-way manned mission to Mars in an article published this month in the "Journal of Cosmology."
In the article, "To Boldly Go: A One-Way Human Mission ...
Washington, D.C. (October 19, 2010) -- In its current early stage of development, digital memory circuits that use organic elements instead of silicon or other inorganic materials have a seemingly endless list of variables and options to consider, test, and optimize. While organic electronics are immediately attractive for their potential for extremely low cost and flexible substrates, many design aspects that are now taken for granted in the mature silicon-circuit world must be examined anew from the ground up.
A group led by Takhee Lee from Korea's Gwangju Institute ...
Washington, D.C. (October 19, 2010) -- We talk about synchronization a lot. We synch up; synch our computers; and get in synch. And synchronous behavior underlies many natural systems, events and phenomena.
Understanding conditions that cause oscillators -- which are common electronic components that produce a repetitive electronic signal -- to get in synch or fall out of synch, is necessary to achieve the optimal functioning of oscillator networks that underlie many technologies. The transition from synchronization to desynchronization is the subject of a new investigation ...
DALLAS – Oct. 20, 2010 – New findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggest a novel role for the brain in mediating beneficial actions of the hormone leptin in type 1 diabetes.
"Our findings really pave the way for understanding the mechanism by which leptin therapy improves type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Roberto Coppari, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the study involving laboratory mice. "Understanding the mechanism is important, because if we can determine how leptin drives these benefits, then we may be ...
DENVER (October 19, 2010) - Long derided as mere entertainment, new research now shows that organizations using video games to train employees end up with smarter, more motivated workers who learn more and forget less.
A University of Colorado Denver Business School study found those trained on video games do their jobs better, have higher skills and retain information longer than workers learning in less interactive, more passive environments.
"Companies have been designing video games for employees for years but so far it has all been done on a hunch. They suspected ...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 – When the military needs to send the key to encrypted data across the world, it can't necessarily rely on today's communication lines, where the message could be covertly intercepted. But physicists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta are developing a new, more secure way to send such information across far distances, using existing cables and the laws of quantum mechanics.
Alex Kuzmich and colleagues have built a critical component of a quantum repeater, a device that allows quantum communications -- such as the encryption keys used ...
Proton beam therapy is safe and effective and may be superior to other conventional treatments for Stage I inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, according to a study in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology•Biology•Physics, the official journal of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death for men and women, according to the American Cancer Society. The standard treatment for early-stage lung cancer is surgery to remove all or part of the lung, but for patients ...
