Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, 44 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, 149 13th Street, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA.
Neuroimage. 2022 Aug 1;256:119216. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119216. Epub 2022 Apr 19.
Currently, there is great interest in making neuroimaging widely accessible and thus expanding the sampling population for better understanding and preventing diseases. The use of wearable health devices has skyrocketed in recent years, allowing continuous assessment of physiological parameters in patients and research cohorts. While most health wearables monitor the heart, lungs and skeletal muscles, devices targeting the brain are currently lacking. To promote brain health in the general population, we developed a novel, low-cost wireless cerebral oximeter called FlexNIRS. The device has 4 LEDs and 3 photodiode detectors arranged in a symmetric geometry, which allows for a self-calibrated multi-distance method to recover cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation (SO) at a rate of 100 Hz. The device is powered by a rechargeable battery and uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for wireless communication. We developed an Android application for portable data collection and real-time analysis and display. Characterization tests in phantoms and human participants show very low noise (noise-equivalent power <70 fW/√Hz) and robustness of SO quantification in vivo. The estimated cost is on the order of $50/unit for 1000 units, and our goal is to share the device with the research community following an open-source model. The low cost, ease-of-use, smart-phone readiness, accurate SO quantification, real time data quality feedback, and long battery life make prolonged monitoring feasible in low resource settings, including typically medically underserved communities, and enable new community and telehealth applications.
目前，人们对普及神经影像学技术有着浓厚的兴趣，希望借此扩大采样人群，从而更好地了解和预防疾病。近年来，可穿戴式健康设备的使用呈爆炸式增长，能够连续评估患者和研究队列的生理参数。尽管大多数健康可穿戴设备都能监测心脏、肺部和骨骼肌，但目前还缺乏针对大脑的设备。为了促进普通人群的大脑健康，我们开发了一种新型的、低成本的无线脑血氧仪，称为 FlexNIRS。该设备有 4 个 LED 和 3 个光电二极管探测器，以对称的几何形状排列，允许采用自校准的多距离方法，以 100Hz 的速率恢复大脑血红蛋白氧合（SO）。该设备由可充电电池供电，并使用蓝牙低能耗（BLE）进行无线通信。我们开发了一个用于便携式数据采集和实时分析及显示的 Android 应用程序。在人体模型和参与者中的特征测试表明，该设备具有非常低的噪声（噪声等效功率<70 fW/√Hz）和体内 SO 定量的稳健性。估计的成本为每个单位 50 美元左右（1000 个单位），我们的目标是在开源模式下与研究界共享该设备。该设备具有成本低、使用方便、支持智能手机、能够准确地进行 SO 定量、实时反馈数据质量以及电池寿命长等优点，使得在资源有限的环境中（包括通常医疗服务不足的社区）进行长时间监测成为可能，并能实现新的社区和远程医疗应用。
