Abstract: Time Domain (TD) Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a spectroscopic optical technique which makes use of light in the 600-1100 nm window to assess the optical tissue properties, i.e. absorption and scattering coefficient. This technique is fast and non-invasive, therefore it can be widely used in real-time, in-vivo applications on humans allowing to determine the absolute values of the hemodynamic tissue’s parameters and to follow their variation in time. Applications to brain (ischemic stroke patients, glaucoma patients) and muscle (rehabilitation evaluation together with electromyography) on healthy and pathological subjects will be presented. Example of other clinical applications can include breast (SOLUS project) and thyroid (LUCA project) monitoring. From an instrumental point of view, recently we are witnessing a drastic decrease in size and costs, which will make TD-NIRS portable and wearable allowing new applications in the field of athletes’ performances assessment or personalized patient monitoring at home.

Keywords: NIRS, fNIRS, diffusion theory, hemodynamics, brain , oxidative metabolism, muscle

Biography: Dr. Rebecca Re is a physical engineer working at the department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano, where she employs Time Domain Near Infrared Spectroscopy (TD-NIRS) to investigate brain functions and the oxygen metabolism of muscles in healthy subjects and patients. Her expertise ranges from the devices development to the clinical translation of the prototypes. She also closely collaborates with physiologists and physicians for the data analysis and interpretation. Rebecca would like to extend the use of NIRS and fNIRS towards new applications and overcome technological limitations.