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Analysis of photon transit time for low-power light passing into the head, and through both skull and brain, of human subjects allowed for tomographic imaging of cerebral hemoglobin oxygenation based on photon diffusion theory. In healthy adults, imaging of changes in hemoglobin saturation during hand movement revealed focal, contralateral increases in motor cortex oxygenation with spatial agreement to activation maps determined by functional magnetic resonance imaging; in ill neonates, imaging of hemoglobin saturation revealed focal regions of low oxygenation after acute stroke, with spatial overlap to injury location determined by computed tomography scan. Because such slow optical changes occur over seconds and co-localize with magnetic resonance imaging vascular signals whereas fast activation-related optical changes occur over milliseconds and co-localize with EEG electrical signals, optical methods offer a single modality for exploring the spatio-temporal relationship between electrical and vascular responses in the brain in vivo, as well as for mapping cortical activation and oxygenation at the bedside in real-time for clinical monitoring.

Prolonged and/or fractionated depolarization due to tissue degeneration of the ventricular myocardium is a feature of cardiomyopathy. Signal averaged electrocardiography uses high-pass filters of the Butterworth type to quantify, noninvasively, fractionated high-frequency components at the end of the QRS complex. In this study a finite impulse response high-pass filter of the 90th order (cutoff at 37 Hz) was applied to magnetocardiograms (MCGs) and high-resolution electrocardiograms (ECGs) order to quantify high-frequency components throughout the myocardial depolarization. Additionally, late-potential analysis on the signal-averaged ECG was performed. A prospective investigation was made of 23 cardiologically asymptomatic patients, 11 females and 12 males, with type I diabetes mellitus. Their mean age was 21.7 years (range, 13-34 years). The mean duration of diabetes was 14 years (range, 1-27 years). Data were compared with those of 22 control subjects (12 females, 10 males) of mean age, 23.2 years (range, 11-35 years). The ECGs and MCGs were simultaneously recorded and signal-averaged, digitally filtered, and quantified by a score obtained by multiplying the amplitude variation of the signal by the number of maximal/minimal in the QRS complex. Echocardiograms were used to calculate the left ventricular mass and to document the presence of cardiomyopathy. Scores were higher in the MCGs of with type I diabetes mellitus than in the control subjects (P < .001). High scores correlated with an increased left ventricular muscular mass index (P < .05) and duration of the diabetes (P < .05). The high-resolution ECG, processed analogously, showed similar results in relation to left ventricular mass (P = .06) and duration of diabetes (P = .07), respectively (nonsignificant). No late potentials were found. These findings suggest that using a linear-phase high-pass finite impulse response filter may be useful for the noninvasive identification of patients with cardiomyopathy who exhibit possible disturbances of intraventricular depolarization. Our findings also suggest that analysis using the total QRS complex, rather than the final part of the QRS complex only, may improve identification of patients at risk.

We applied non-invasive multisite near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to assess oxygenation changes during performance of a sequential finger opposition task in five healthy human adults. Oxygenation response was localized anatomically using three-dimensional high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (3D MRI). NIRS measurements showed a localized increase in [oxy-Hb] and a decrease in [deoxy-Hb] in all subjects. The largest response was obtained when the measurement position was over the primary motor and sensory cortex hand area. Interestingly, changes in [deoxy-Hb] seemed to be more localized than changes in [oxy-Hb]. We conclude that this simple, non-invasive and flexible optical bedside method may be used for functional brain mapping.