Yoshio Tsunazawa

Cortical mapping of gait in humans: a near-infrared spectroscopic topography study.

While we have a fair understanding of how and where forelimb-hand manipulative movements are controlled by the neocortex, due to functional imaging studies, we know little about the control of bipedal movements such as walking because of technical difficulties. We succeeded in visualizing cortical activation patterns of human gait by measuring relative changes in local hemoglobin oxygenation using a recently developed near-infrared spectroscopic (NIRS) topography technique. Walking activities were bilaterally associated with increased levels of oxygenated and total hemoglobin in the medial primary sensorimotor cortices and the supplementary motor areas. Alternating foot movements activated similar but less broad regions. Gait imagery increased activities caudally located in the supplementary motor areas. These findings provide new insight into cortical control of human locomotion. NIRS topography might be also useful for evaluating cerebral activation patterns during pathological gait and rehabilitative intervention.

Multichannel time-resolved optical tomographic imaging system

A time-resolved optical imaging system using near-infrared light has been developed. The system had three pulsed light sources and total 64 channels of detection, working simultaneously for acquisition of the time-resolved data of the pulsed light transmitted through scattering media like biological tissues. The light sources were provided by high power picosecond pulsed diode lasers, and optical switches directed one of the light sources to the object through an optical fiber. The light signals reemitted from the surface of the object were collected by optical fibers, and transmitted to a time-resolved detecting system. Each of the detecting channels consisted of an optical attenuator, a fast photomultiplier, and a time-correlated single photon counting circuit which contained a miniaturized constant fraction discriminator/time-to-amplitude converter module, and a signal acquisition unit with an A/D converter. The performance and potentiality of the imaging system have been examined by the image reconstr...

Analysis of nonlinear relation for skin hemoglobin imaging.

This paper discusses the accuracy of the optical determination of the oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin content of human skin under the influence of a melanin layer for a multi-wavelengths imager. The relation between the nonlinear results by Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and the modified Lambert Beers law (MLB) is also clarified, emphasizing the importance of the absolute values of skin pigments and their influence on the mean path-length used in MLB. The fitting procedure of the MCS data to the actual skin spectra is shown to obtain the absolute values. It is also shown that once the proper mean path-lengths have been determined, MLB can be used fairly well within an accuracy of 80% compared with MCS. Images of oxygenated hemoglobin with a newly-developed fourwavelength camera are presented to demonstrate the advantages of a multiwavelength system.

Nanoparticle size analysis with relaxation of induced grating by dielectrophoresis

We propose an alternative approach to the use of dynamic light scattering (DLS) for the analysis of particle sizes ranging from 5 nm to 100 nm. This approach employs a combination of 1) diffusion, 2) density grating, and 3) dielectrophoresis (DEP), and measures the diffusion coefficient from the decay rate of the diffracted light intensity in the relaxation process of particle density modulation generated by DEP. Both the experiments and the theoretical analysis confirm the reliable determination of particle size independently of the refractive index. The new method records a decay signal directly without an autocorrelator and is expected to have a less extreme sensitivity dependence on particle size than DLS.

Optical tomography by the temporally extrapolated absorbance method.

The concept of the temporally extrapolated absorbance method (TEAM) for optical tomography of turbid media has been verified by fundamental experiments and image reconstruction. The TEAM uses the time-resolved spectroscopic data of the reference and object to provide projection data that are processed by conventional backprojection. Optical tomography images of a phantom consisting of axisymmetric double cylinders were experimentally obtained with the TEAM and time-gating and continuous-wave (CW) methods. The reconstructed TEAM images are compared with those obtained with the time-gating and CW methods and are found to have better spatial resolution.

Near-infrared optical imager for cerebral blood flow and oxygenation detection

This paper describes the theory and the apparatus on our newly developed 64 channel optical imager that enables imaging of three components, indocyanine green (ICG), oxyHb and deoxyHb. Knowledge on blood flow is obtainable using ICG as a blood flow indicator that is to be introduced via injection. ICG has a strong absorption at 805nm, therefore the changes in ICG is detectable with NIR spectroscopy separating from oxyHb and deoxyHb using proper three wavelengths. In addition to the system description, it describes an animal experiment and a phantom test for the validation study. It discusses independence features of ICG on Hb values. Using a simple quasi Lambert Beers law, it proved the excellent separation of the three components. It also discusses the factors that affect the performance of signal separation.

Estimation of regional cerebral blood flow distribution in infants by multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy with indocyanine green

This is the report on the use of multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (MNIRS) with indocyanine green (ICG) to determine regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) distribution disturbance in infants. We measured rCBF in an infant with subdural hemorrhage after surgical removal of a subdural hematoma. A probe consisting of 12 optical fibers, 6 for transmission and 6 for detection, was set on the right and then left temporal regions of the head of the infant, and 16 measuring points were determined. Changes in ICG concentration were recorded using MNIRS (near infrared optical imaging system, OMM-2000, Shimadzu Corp., Japan).

Optical imaging of hemoglobin distribution in human skin

We have developed a new four-wavelength optical imager to evaluate the oxygen supply in human skin for peripheral circulation. It measures the reflected light from human skin by a CCD and presents the maps of hemoglobin distribution. This paper describes the principle, system configuration and performance test for human foot during and after venous and arterial occlusion. The obtained images showed distinct local difference in skin oxygenation due to blood flow.

Realistic dynamic brain phantom and time-resolved measurement

In the process of developing optical tomographic imaging systems for diagnosis of disease and study of brain functions of human heads, we need realistic optical phantoms which anatomically and optically simulate human heads with complicated and multi-layered structures. Previously we have reported design and fabrication methods of optical head phantoms based on MRI images of a human head. The phantoms were simulated the multilayered structure with different optical properties at five layers; i.e., skin, skull, cerebrospinal fluid layer, gray matter and white matter. Also the phantoms which were mainly made of solid resin had dynamic parts to simulate the temporal variation of physiological functions in brain. The optical properties of the liquid circulating through the dynamic part can be changed to simulate the change in oxygenation states. The material of the skin layer has been changed from solid resin to soft rubber in order to have a good contact with optical fibers. The fabricated optical head phantom has been used in time-resolved spectroscopic measurement, and the usefulness of the dynamic optical head phantom is verified.

Image reconstruction in optical CT using TEAM (temporally extrapolated absorbance method)

Reconstructed images in optical CT by using temporally extrapolated absorbance method (TEAM) are presented. In order to evaluate the system we made optical phantoms with absorbing material, scattering material, and solvents. We reconstructed images by FBP with the new concept on the optical density by the TEAM. TEAM was superior to other methods in S/N ratio and spatial resolution.