Locked-In ALS Patients Answer Yes or No Questions with Wearable fNIRS Device

Functional near infrared spectroscopic (fNIRS) imaging (pronounced f-nears) has led to a breakthrough in communication with ALS patients who are “Locked-In,” meaning they are in advanced stages of the disease where the brain is conscious and functioning, but they are unable to move any muscles, including the eyes.

Introducing a new study co-authored by our former doctoral intern, Dr Ségolène Guérin of the University of the Littoral Opal Coast, France.

In this fNIRS Reproducibility Study Hub (FRESH) initiative, 38 teams worldwide independently analysed the same fNIRS datasets. fNIRS is a technique from neuroscience that uses near-infrared light to measure brain activity.

👉 The Good News: At the group level, nearly 80% of teams reached similar conclusions, especially when hypotheses were strongly supported by the extant literature.

👉 The Challenges: There was variability in interpretation when researchers needed to handle poor-quality data, through their selection of statistical models and reporting of analyses.

🔑 What does this mean for the scientific community? The study shows that while flexible analytical tools are valuable, clearer standards for data handling, analysis and reporting are needed. Through identifying key sources of variability, there clear guidelines emerge to strengthen the transparency and comparability of future fNIRS research.

We are pleased to share the latest publication of former SAVI Brunel doctoral intern Dr Ségolène Guérin (nowat Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, France).

Clear communication and definitions that are widely accepted are vital to the development of all fields of scientific endeavour – especially so in rapidly-growing, interdisciplinary areas such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), in which researchers represent disciplines as diverse as neuroscience, psychology and engineering. To address this challenge, 76 researchers representing a range of disciplines joined forces to create a community-driven glossary of essential fNIRS terms.

What’s inside: ✅ 300+ terms are defined ✅ Six categories: analysis, experimental design, hardware, neuroscience, mathematics and physics ✅ Abbreviations, symbols, references, alternative definitions, figures and much more

🔗 https://doi.org/10.1117/1.NPh.12.2.027801

Baby, adult brains ‘sync up’ during play

New York, Jan 11 (IANS) Researchers have found that infants and adults are likely to be on the same wavelength, experiencing similar brain activity in the same brain regions during play.

The research team from Princeton University has conducted the study on how baby and adult brains interact during natural play, and they found measurable similarities in their neural activity.

“Previous research…