Bonilauri Augusto, Sangiuliano Intra Francesca, Pugnetti Luigi, Baselli Giuseppe, Baglio Francesca
Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy.
IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS, CADITER, 20148 Milan, Italy.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2020 Aug 12;10(8):581. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics10080581.
The management of people affected by age-related neurological disorders requires the adoption of targeted and cost-effective interventions to cope with chronicity. Therapy adaptation and rehabilitation represent major targets requiring long-term follow-up of neurodegeneration or, conversely, the promotion of neuroplasticity mechanisms. However, affordable and reliable neurophysiological correlates of cerebral activity to be used throughout treatment stages are often lacking. The aim of this systematic review is to highlight actual applications of functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) as a versatile optical neuroimaging technology for investigating cortical hemodynamic activity in the most common chronic neurological conditions.
We reviewed studies investigating fNIRS applications in Parkinson's Disease (PD), Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) as those focusing on motor and cognitive impairment in ageing and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) as the most common chronic neurological disease in young adults. The literature search was conducted on NCBI PubMed and Web of Science databases by PRISMA guidelines.
We identified a total of 63 peer-reviewed articles. The AD spectrum is the most investigated pathology with 40 articles ranging from the traditional monitoring of tissue oxygenation to the analysis of functional resting-state conditions or cognitive functions by means of memory and verbal fluency tasks. Conversely, applications in PD (12 articles) and MS (11 articles) are mainly focused on the characterization of motor functions and their association with dual-task conditions. The most investigated cortical area is the prefrontal cortex, since reported to play an important role in age-related compensatory mechanism and neurofunctional changes associated to these chronic neurological conditions. Interestingly, only 9 articles applied a longitudinal approach.
The results indicate that fNIRS is mainly employed for the cross-sectional characterization of the clinical phenotypes of these pathologies, whereas data on its utility for longitudinal monitoring as surrogate biomarkers of disease progression and rehabilitation effects are promising but still lacking.
对患有年龄相关性神经障碍的人群进行管理，需要采取针对性强且具成本效益的干预措施来应对慢性病。治疗调整和康复是主要目标，需要对神经退行性变进行长期随访，或者促进神经可塑性机制。然而，在整个治疗阶段，往往缺乏可负担得起且可靠的大脑活动神经生理相关性指标。本系统综述的目的是突出功能性近红外光谱（fNIRS）作为一种多功能光学神经成像技术在最常见慢性神经疾病中研究皮质血流动力学活动的实际应用。
我们回顾了研究fNIRS在帕金森病（PD）、阿尔茨海默病（AD）和轻度认知障碍（MCI）中的应用的研究，这些研究关注衰老过程中的运动和认知障碍，以及多发性硬化症（MS），这是年轻人中最常见的慢性神经疾病。根据PRISMA指南在NCBI PubMed和科学网数据库进行文献检索。
我们共识别出63篇同行评议文章。AD谱系是研究最多的病理类型，有40篇文章，内容从传统的组织氧合监测到通过记忆和语言流畅性任务分析功能性静息状态或认知功能。相反，在PD（12篇文章）和MS（11篇文章）中的应用主要集中在运动功能的特征描述及其与双重任务条件的关联。研究最多的皮质区域是前额叶皮质，因为据报道它在与这些慢性神经疾病相关的年龄相关性代偿机制和神经功能变化中起重要作用。有趣的是，只有9篇文章采用了纵向研究方法。
结果表明，fNIRS主要用于这些疾病临床表型的横断面特征描述，而关于其作为疾病进展和康复效果替代生物标志物用于纵向监测的效用的数据很有前景，但仍然缺乏。
