Speaker
Description
Access to brain monitoring technologies remains a critical need in low-income countries, where neonatal brain injury contributes substantially to permanent neurological impairment and mortality. To address this challenge, we introduced a low-cost, wearable near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device developed by repurposing a commercially available optical biosensing evaluation module (MAXM86146EVSYS, Maxim Integrated). The device is battery-powered, wireless, compact, and provides enhanced depth sensitivity for measuring cerebral oxygenation in both neonatal and adult humans. This approach eliminates the need for custom hardware, allowing end users with minimal engineering expertise to reproduce the system while preserving robust signal quality.
System performance was characterized through long-term stability testing and layered blood-phantom experiments. The capability of the device to monitor cerebral hemodynamics in adults was further evaluated in humans using carotid compression and hypercapnia challenges. Performance testing demonstrated stable operation with less than 1% signal drift over nearly four hours of continuous use. Two-layer blood phantom experiments showed enhanced depth sensitivity and the ability to detect deep-layer oxygenation changes beneath a 15 mm superficial layer, representative of adult extracerebral tissues. In vivo experiments produced expected cerebral hemodynamic and oxygenation responses, confirming sensitivity to physiologically relevant changes in cerebral tissue oxygenation. In addition, robustness across diverse skin pigmentation levels was evaluated in adults, demonstrating preserved physiological pulsatility despite reduced detected intensity at higher pigmentation levels.
These results demonstrate the feasibility of adapting a commercially available optical biosensing module into a reliable NIRS-based cerebral oximeter, offering a practical solution for neonatal brain monitoring in low-resource environments. The device can be reproduced with minimal technical skills by replacing the factory-installed LEDs and mounting the module within a 3D-printed probe.
This study was supported by Western University under the Frugal Biomedical Innovations program, NSERC Discovery Grants (RGPIN-2023-05561), and (RGPIN-2020-06856).
| Keyword-1 | Near-infrared spectroscopy |
|---|---|
| Keyword-2 | Brain monitoring technologies |
| Keyword-3 | Cerebral oximeter |