Diffuse optical measurement of blood flow, blood oxygenation, and metabolism in a human brain during sensorimotor cortex activation.

We combine diffuse optical and correlation spectroscopies to simultaneously measure the oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration and blood flow in an adult human brain during sensorimotor stimulation. The observations permit calculation of the relative cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen in the human brain, for the first time to our knowledge, by use of all-optical methods. The feasibility for noninvasive optical measurement of blood flow through the skull of an adult brain is thus demonstrated, and the clinical potential of this hybrid, all-optical noninvasive, methodology can now be explored.