Multimodal Neuroimaging (fMRI and fNIRS) at WPI PracticePoint

Elmhurst, Stuart; Jaffari, Milad; Baker, Vishali

Student Work

Multimodal Neuroimaging (fMRI and fNIRS) at WPI PracticePoint

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Chronic pain presents a complex challenge in medical science that affects a substantial portion of the population. The most common technique to analyze how chronic pain manifests in the brain is by the way of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). While this method provides reliable, insightful data, it has large downsides. In recent studies, however, there has been promising data that suggest that fNIRS may offer a unique opportunity to investigate the neural foundations of pain perception in real-time. This study focuses on analyzing cortical neural hemodynamics during resting-state using fNIRS for future collation with fMRI data and applications in chronic pain identification and research. To analyze this, a sample set of 7 participating healthy individuals over the age of 18, underwent multimodal neuroimaging utilizing both fMRI and fNIRS imaging techniques simultaneously. This data was processed in nirsLAB software using GLM analysis to derive what areas of the cortex experienced significant increases in hemoglobin. The results of this study did find spontaneous increases in hemoglobin in the 4 valid samples analyzed as would be expected with resting-state data. However, the overall consensus was that overall, the sample set was not ideal due to the substantial loss of data integrity across the 20 channels observed for each subject.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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