A hyperspectral time resolved DOT system to monitor physiological changes of the human brain activity

Diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is a growing area of research in the field of biomedical optics and neurosciences. Over the past 20 years, technical development allowed a more and more accurate detection of the brain activation, both spatially and in the calculation of the variations of chromophores's concentrations such as Hemoglobin, cytochrome c oxidase, etc. In particular, time resolved systems are able to distinguish between superficial layers (skin, skull) and deep layers (brain) allowing the differentiation between the systemic response and the response of the brain. In order to increase the accuracy of the brain's activation detection, we have developed a Hyperspectral Time Resolved DOT system. It is composed of a compact supercontinuum laser within the picosecond range for the source part and of an ICCD camera coupled with an imaging spectrometer for the detection part. This allows a simultaneous detection of the spatial and spectral dimension, as well as the time of flight of photons. Through the information acquired by our system, we've been able to retrieve, to our knowledge, the first spectrum of the physiology of the human brain activity as function as depth. Here we present the instrument and show our first in-vivo results that are demonstrating its capabilities to distinguish between the skin's response and the brain's responses during a cognitive task. We are also focused on the detection of the Fast Optical Signal.