Crawford Seth B, Le Tiffany-Chau, Bowden Audrey K
Vanderbilt University, Biophotonics Center, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Vanderbilt University, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Nashville, Tennessee, United States.
Neurophotonics. 2024 Oct;11(4):045011. doi: 10.1117/1.NPh.11.4.045011. Epub 2024 Nov 25.
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising alternative to functional magnetic resonance imaging for measuring brain activity, but the presence of hair reduces data quality.
To improve research efficiency and promote wider subject inclusivity, we developed the "Mini Comb"-an attachment for commercial fNIRS head caps that can rapidly clear hair with a simple twisting motion.
To test the utility of the Mini Comb on different hair types, we measured the clearance achieved with eight unique sliding leg extrusions on 10 wigged mannequins of various hair characteristics. Following mannequin testing, we recruited a total of 15 participants to evaluate the performance of the Mini Comb as pertains to the time needed to create clearance and the signal quality captured.
The Mini Comb achieves comparable signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) as standard hair clearance procedures while reducing hair clearance time by nearly 50%. Importantly, group analysis revealed better SNR results when the Mini Comb sliding leg design is matched to hair type, suggesting that consideration of hair type is important when conducting fNIRS studies.
The Mini Comb thus opens the door for the deployment of fNIRS for more widespread, inclusive, and comprehensive neuroimaging studies.
功能近红外光谱技术（fNIRS）是一种很有前景的测量大脑活动的方法，可替代功能磁共振成像，但头发的存在会降低数据质量。
为了提高研究效率并促进更广泛的受试者参与度，我们开发了“迷你梳子”——一种用于商业fNIRS头帽的附件，通过简单的扭转动作就能快速梳理头发。
为了测试迷你梳子在不同发型上的效用，我们在10个具有各种头发特征的假发模特上，用8种独特的滑动腿挤压方式测量了梳理效果。在模特测试之后，我们共招募了15名参与者，以评估迷你梳子在创造梳理空间所需时间和所采集信号质量方面的表现。
迷你梳子能达到与标准头发梳理程序相当的信噪比（SNR），同时将头发梳理时间减少了近50%。重要的是，分组分析显示，当迷你梳子的滑动腿设计与发型匹配时，信噪比结果更好，这表明在进行fNIRS研究时考虑发型很重要。
因此，迷你梳子为更广泛、更具包容性和综合性的神经成像研究中部署fNIRS打开了大门。
