NIRS

In recent years NIRS has been used by our laboratory and others to investigate biological phenomena associated with the activity of the nervous system (1-4). We can currently detect signals derived from oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin changes in several situations:

• in cognitive and motor activity of the cortex. Alterations in these signals are studied as a method for detecting brain ischemia (stroke) in the field as well as in studies of cognition.

• in traumatic brain injury in a porcine model of blunt head trauma.

• in the peripheral nervous system.

• in epileptic discharges and in the varying states of sleep.

One of the newest lines of work in the laboratory is the transformation from using light for detection into a strategy of using light for therapeutics (neurophotonics). We are currently exploring the use of light to detect an ischemic spectral fingerprint and then use NIRS light to activate specific molecules which will act at the site of the stroke as a neuroprotectant agent.