Home fNIRS for future use in auditory diagnostics
Article Open Access

fNIRS for future use in auditory diagnostics

  • Günther Bauernfeind EMAIL logo , Sabine Haumann and Thomas Lenarz
Published/Copyright: September 30, 2016

Abstract

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an emerging technique for the assessment of functional activity of the cerebral cortex. Recently fNIRS was also envisaged as a novel neuroimaging approach for measuring the auditory cortex (AC) activity in cochlear implant (CI) users. In the present study we report on initial measurements of AC activation due to spatial sound presentation with a first target to generate data for comparison with CI user and the future use in auditory diagnostics.

1 Introduction

In cases of severe hearing loss or deafness the hearing ability can be restored in parts, for example, by using a cochlear implant (CI; for a review see [1], [2]). Therefore, the CI mimics the function of the inner ear. The challenge is to objectively measure and verify whether the stimulation of the CI reaches the auditory cortex (AC) and induces the desired neural activity. This is primarily caused by the fact that the use of traditional neuroimaging modalities (i.e. EEG, MEG, fMRI) is limited due to electrical artifacts and ferromagnetic components of the CI. Therefore other, also repeatedly and frequently usable methods, have to be investigated. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS; for a review see [3]), which can be used stand alone or in combination with other modalities (multimodal recording), seems therefore a promising approach. fNIRS is an non-invasive optical technique for the assessment of cerebral oxygenation (changes of oxygenated (oxy-Hb) and deoxygenated hemoglobin (deoxy-Hb) concentration) which strongly correlates with cortical (neuronal) activity [4], [5]. Recently fNIRS was proposed as a novel neuroimaging approach in CI recipients (for a first review see [6]). However, the existing literature is limited and mainly focusing on higher-level auditory processing (for an overview see [7]) or speech perception [6]. Therefore further, basic research on lower-level auditory perception [7] is necessary to investigate the future use of fNIRS on CI users and the application in the field of auditory diagnostics.

In the present work we report on first pilot measurements of cortical activation patterns in normal-hearing adults with the target to generate normative data of AC activation.

2 Methods

2.1 Participants and experimental paradigm

The initial investigations were carried out on a group of four normal hearing subjects (three male, one female; aged 25.0 ± 4.9 years). The subjects performed a passive listening task consisting of six different auditory stimuli (1 kHz sine wave, amplitude modulated by 4 and 10 Hz sine waves; modified from [7]). Stimuli were presented spatially (binaural “Bin” & loudness matched [8] monaural left “MonL” and right “MonR”) with two different intensities (“HIGH-”: 70dB and “LOW-”: 40 dB sound pressure level, SPL). For each subject 2 (Intensity: “HIGH-”, “LOW-”) × 3 (Spatial: “Bin”, “MonL”, “MonR”) × 10 trials plus 10 additional trials without stimulation (“Silence”) were recorded in a random order (total 70 trials). Each trial consisted of an auditory stimuli presented for 10 s (“Silence”: no stimulus within this time) followed by a fixed pause of 20 s taking into account the time needed for the hemodynamic response to return back to baseline [4]. In addition an inter-trial interval randomly varying in duration from 0 to 5 s was included to reduce temporal adjustment of the subjects to the paradigm. During the experiment the subjects lay comfortably in a semi-supine position (about 30 degrees elevation of head, Figure 1). No attempt was made to control the subjects thought content. Subjects were instructed to avoid head movements and were told to restrict movements like swallowing to the pause and inter-trial interval.

Figure 1 (A) Schematic illustration of the bilateral 38-channel array. (B) Array mounted on cap. (C) Projections of the source (red), detector (blue) and fNIRS channel positions (white) on the cortical surface. Positions are overlaid on an MNI-152 compatible canonical brain [9]. (D) Array mounted on a subject’s head.
Figure 1

(A) Schematic illustration of the bilateral 38-channel array. (B) Array mounted on cap. (C) Projections of the source (red), detector (blue) and fNIRS channel positions (white) on the cortical surface. Positions are overlaid on an MNI-152 compatible canonical brain [9]. (D) Array mounted on a subject’s head.

2.2 Data acquisition and processing

For fNIRS recordings a multichannel system (Imagent, ISS Inc., Champaign, USA) was used. The system consists of 12 detectors and 16 emitters (38 channels, details see Figure 1) and enables to measure the changes of (de)oxy-Hb in the unit of mm*mm. To allow a probabilistic reference to cortical areas underlying the measurement channels, a procedure was used which projects topographical data based on skull landmarks into a 3D reference frame (MNI-space, Montreal Neurological Institute) optimized for fNIRS analysis [9]. For each fNIRS channel position (Figure 1C), a set of MNI coordinates (x, y and z) was calculated.

For data analysis the following steps were performed: After a visual inspection of the raw data, trials containing artifacts were excluded. After high- (0.01 Hz) and low- (0.09 Hz) pass filtering global influences [10] were reduced by a spatial filtering approach (details see [11]). Mean task-related changes referred to a 5 s baseline interval prior to the task were calculated. To generate topographic distributions (de)oxy-Hb values (mean over 10–12 s; end of task) were interpolated and plotted corresponding to their spatial positions.

3 Results

Subsequent first results of the measured cortical patterns (only oxy-Hb) for binaural stimulation with two different intensities (“HIGH-Bin” & “LOW-Bin”) are presented. In general, all subjects exhibited pronounced and spatially localized pattern, either for one or for both (40 dB in 3, 70 dB in four subjects) stimulus intensities. Oxy-Hb increases could be found in both hemispheres and were mainly related to channels overlaying Brodmann areas (BA) 21 & 22, 44 & 45 (Broca’s area) and 47. Comparing both intensities, significant differences (in at least three channels) in oxy-Hb responses were found in three subjects. As an example Figure 2 depicts the recorded patterns of a subject with highly pronounced contrast.

Figure 2 (A) Topographical oxy-Hb maps for “High-Bin” and “Low-Bin” stimulation. (B) Comparison of the time courses of the oxy-Hb signals at channel positions 6 (BA 45, LH) and 24 (BA 45, RH).
Figure 2

(A) Topographical oxy-Hb maps for “High-Bin” and “Low-Bin” stimulation. (B) Comparison of the time courses of the oxy-Hb signals at channel positions 6 (BA 45, LH) and 24 (BA 45, RH).

Comparing both stimulus intensities (“HIGH-Bin”–“LOW-Bin” contrast, Figure 3) this subject displays significant (p < 0.05) bilateral, but slightly more left lateralized (6 vs. 4 channels), oxy-Hb contrast increases in channels overlaying BA 21 & 22, 44 & 45 and 47. In parallel significant decreases in the oxy-Hb contrast are localized to channels overlaying BA 1 & 2 and 40.

Figure 3 (A) Calculated oxy-Hb contrast for “HIGH-Bin”-“LOW-Bin”. (B) Projections of subject specific channel positions including significant (p < 0.05, color-coded) oxy-Hb contrasts.
Figure 3

(A) Calculated oxy-Hb contrast for “HIGH-Bin”-“LOW-Bin”. (B) Projections of subject specific channel positions including significant (p < 0.05, color-coded) oxy-Hb contrasts.

4 Discussion and conclusion

Already with the pilot investigations it was possible to achieve promising initial results. We found pronounced activation patterns in cortical areas which are related with auditory processing. Based on these results, detailed measurements on intensity related AC activation patterns are in work. Also investigations on the comparison of binaural and monaural stimulus presentation are in progress. Future investigations also include the measurement of brain activity patterns in hearing impaired subjects and patients with cochlear implants and the comparison with normal hearing subjects.

Author’s Statement

Research funding: This work is supported by the Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all” (EXC 1077/1). Conflict of interest: Authors state no conflict of interest. Material and Methods: Informed consent: Informed consent has been obtained from all individuals included in this study. Ethical approval: The research related to human use complies with all the relevant national regulations, institutional policies and was performed in accordance the tenets of the Helsinki Declaration, and has been approved by the authors’ institutional review board or equivalent committee.

References

[1] Krueger B, Joseph G, Rost U, Strauss-Schier A, Lenarz T, Buechner A. Performance groups in adult cochlear implant users: speech perception results from 1984 until today. Otol Neurotol. 2008;29:509–12.10.1097/MAO.0b013e318171972fSearch in Google Scholar PubMed

[2] Kral A, O’Donoghue GM. Profound deafness in childhood. N Engl J Med. 2010;363:1438–50.10.1056/NEJMra0911225Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[3] Ferrari M, Quaresima V. A brief review on the history of human functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) development and fields of application. NeuroImage. 2012;63:921–35.10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.03.049Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[4] Malonek D, Grinvald A. Interactions between electrical activity and cortical microcirculation revealed by imaging spectroscopy: implications for functional brain mapping. Science. 1996;272:551–4.10.1126/science.272.5261.551Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[5] Wolf M, Wolf U, Toronov V, Michalos A, Paunescu LA, Choi J, et al. Different time evolution of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin concentration changes in visual and motor cortices during functional stimulation: a near-infrared spectroscopy study NeuroImage. 2002;16:704–12.10.1006/nimg.2002.1128Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[6] Saliba J, Bortfeld H, Levetin D, Oghalai J. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy for neuroimaging in cochlear implant recipients. Hear Res. 2016;(in press).10.1016/j.heares.2016.02.005Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central

[7] Chen LC, Sandmann P, Thorne JD, Herrmann CS, Debener S. Association of concurrent fNIRS and EEG signatures in response to auditory and visual stimuli. Brain Topogr. 2015;28:710–25.10.1007/s10548-015-0424-8Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[8] Fastl H. Binaural hearing. In: Fastl H, Zwicker E, editors. Psychoacoustics: facts and models. Berin: Springer Series in Information Sciences; 2007. p. 293–313.10.1007/978-3-540-68888-4_15Search in Google Scholar

[9] Singh AK, Okamoto M, Dan H, Jurcak V, Dan I. Spatial registration of multichannel multi-subject fNIRS data to MNI space without MRI. NeuroImage. 2005;27:842–51.10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.05.019Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[10] Bauernfeind G, Boeck C, Wriessnegger SC, Müller-Putz GR. Physiological noise removal from fNIRS signals. Biomed Tech (Berl). 2013;58:1–2.10.1515/bmt-2013-4430Search in Google Scholar PubMed

[11] Bauernfeind G, Wriessnegger SC, Daly I, Müller-Putz GR. Separating heart and brain: on the reduction of physiological noise from multichannel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) signals. J Neural Eng. 2014;11:5601.10.1088/1741-2560/11/5/056010Search in Google Scholar PubMed

Published Online: 2016-9-30
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

©2016 Günther Bauernfeind et al., licensee De Gruyter.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Synthesis and characterization of PIL/pNIPAAm hybrid hydrogels
  2. Novel blood protein based scaffolds for cardiovascular tissue engineering
  3. Cell adhesion and viability of human endothelial cells on electrospun polymer scaffolds
  4. Effects of heat treatment and welding process on superelastic behaviour and microstructure of micro electron beam welded NiTi
  5. Long-term stable modifications of silicone elastomer for improved hemocompatibility
  6. The effect of thermal treatment on the mechanical properties of PLLA tubular specimens
  7. Biocompatible wear-resistant thick ceramic coating
  8. Protection of active implant electronics with organosilicon open air plasma coating for plastic overmolding
  9. Examination of dielectric strength of thin Parylene C films under various conditions
  10. Open air plasma deposited antimicrobial SiOx/TiOx composite films for biomedical applications
  11. Systemic analysis about residual chloroform in PLLA films
  12. A macrophage model of osseointegration
  13. Towards in silico prognosis using big data
  14. Technical concept and evaluation of a novel shoulder simulator with adaptive muscle force generation and free motion
  15. Usability evaluation of a locomotor therapy device considering different strategies
  16. Hypoxia-on-a-chip
  17. Integration of a semi-automatic in-vitro RFA procedure into an experimental setup
  18. Fabrication of MEMS-based 3D-μECoG-MEAs
  19. High speed digital interfacing for a neural data acquisition system
  20. Bionic forceps for the handling of sensitive tissue
  21. Experimental studies on 3D printing of barium titanate ceramics for medical applications
  22. Patient specific root-analogue dental implants – additive manufacturing and finite element analysis
  23. 3D printing – a key technology for tailored biomedical cell culture lab ware
  24. 3D printing of hydrogels in a temperature controlled environment with high spatial resolution
  25. Biocompatibility of photopolymers for additive manufacturing
  26. Biochemical piezoresistive sensors based on pH- and glucose-sensitive hydrogels for medical applications
  27. Novel wireless measurement system of pressure dedicated to in vivo studies
  28. Portable auricular device for real-time swallow and chew detection
  29. Detection of miRNA using a surface plasmon resonance biosensor and antibody amplification
  30. Simulation and evaluation of stimulation scenarios for targeted vestibular nerve excitation
  31. Deep brain stimulation: increasing efficiency by alternative waveforms
  32. Prediction of immediately occurring microsleep events from brain electric signals
  33. Determining cardiac vagal threshold from short term heart rate complexity
  34. Classification of cardiac excitation patterns during atrial fibrillation
  35. An algorithm to automatically determine the cycle length coverage to identify rotational activity during atrial fibrillation – a simulation study
  36. Deriving respiration from high resolution 12-channel-ECG during cycling exercise
  37. Reducing of gradient induced artifacts on the ECG signal during MRI examinations using Wilcoxon filter
  38. Automatic detection and mapping of double potentials in intracardiac electrograms
  39. Modeling the pelvic region for non-invasive pelvic intraoperative neuromonitoring
  40. Postprocessing algorithm for automated analysis of pelvic intraoperative neuromonitoring signals
  41. Best practice: surgeon driven application in pelvic operations
  42. Vasomotor assessment by camera-based photoplethysmography
  43. Classification of morphologic changes in photoplethysmographic waveforms
  44. Novel computation of pulse transit time from multi-channel PPG signals by wavelet transform
  45. Efficient design of FIR filter based low-pass differentiators for biomedical signal processing
  46. Nonlinear causal influences assessed by mutual compression entropy
  47. Comparative study of methods for solving the correspondence problem in EMD applications
  48. fNIRS for future use in auditory diagnostics
  49. Semi-automated detection of fractional shortening in zebrafish embryo heart videos
  50. Blood pressure measurement on the cheek
  51. Derivation of the respiratory rate from directly and indirectly measured respiratory signals using autocorrelation
  52. Left cardiac atrioventricular delay and inter-ventricular delay in cardiac resynchronization therapy responder and non-responder
  53. An automatic systolic peak detector of blood pressure waveforms using 4th order cumulants
  54. Real-time QRS detection using integrated variance for ECG gated cardiac MRI
  55. Preprocessing of unipolar signals acquired by a novel intracardiac mapping system
  56. In-vitro experiments to characterize ventricular electromechanics
  57. Continuous non-invasive monitoring of blood pressure in the operating room: a cuffless optical technology at the fingertip
  58. Application of microwave sensor technology in cardiovascular disease for plaque detection
  59. Artificial blood circulatory and special Ultrasound Doppler probes for detecting and sizing gaseous embolism
  60. Detection of microsleep events in a car driving simulation study using electrocardiographic features
  61. A method to determine the kink resistance of stents and stent delivery systems according to international standards
  62. Comparison of stented bifurcation and straight vessel 3D-simulation with a prior simulated velocity profile inlet
  63. Transient Euler-Lagrange/DEM simulation of stent thrombosis
  64. Automated control of the laser welding process of heart valve scaffolds
  65. Automation of a test bench for accessing the bendability of electrospun vascular grafts
  66. Influence of storage conditions on the release of growth factors in platelet-rich blood derivatives
  67. Cryopreservation of cells using defined serum-free cryoprotective agents
  68. New bioreactor vessel for tissue engineering of human nasal septal chondrocytes
  69. Determination of the membrane hydraulic permeability of MSCs
  70. Climate retainment in carbon dioxide incubators
  71. Multiple factors influencing OR ventilation system effectiveness
  72. Evaluation of an app-based stress protocol
  73. Medication process in Styrian hospitals
  74. Control tower to surgical theater
  75. Development of a skull phantom for the assessment of implant X-ray visibility
  76. Surgical navigation with QR codes
  77. Investigation of the pressure gradient of embolic protection devices
  78. Computer assistance in femoral derotation osteotomy: a bottom-up approach
  79. Automatic depth scanning system for 3D infrared thermography
  80. A service for monitoring the quality of intraoperative cone beam CT images
  81. Resectoscope with an easy to use twist mechanism for improved handling
  82. In vitro simulation of distribution processes following intramuscular injection
  83. Adjusting inkjet printhead parameters to deposit drugs into micro-sized reservoirs
  84. A flexible standalone system with integrated sensor feedback for multi-pad electrode FES of the hand
  85. Smart control for functional electrical stimulation with optimal pulse intensity
  86. Tactile display on the remaining hand for unilateral hand amputees
  87. Effects of sustained electrical stimulation on spasticity assessed by the pendulum test
  88. An improved tracking framework for ultrasound probe localization in image-guided radiosurgery
  89. Improvement of a subviral particle tracker by the use of a LAP-Kalman-algorithm
  90. Learning discriminative classification models for grading anal intraepithelial neoplasia
  91. Regularization of EIT reconstruction based on multi-scales wavelet transforms
  92. Assessing MRI susceptibility artefact through an indicator of image distortion
  93. EyeGuidance – a computer controlled system to guide eye movements
  94. A framework for feedback-based segmentation of 3D image stacks
  95. Doppler optical coherence tomography as a promising tool for detecting fluid in the human middle ear
  96. 3D Local in vivo Environment (LivE) imaging for single cell protein analysis of bone tissue
  97. Inside-Out access strategy using new trans-vascular catheter approach
  98. US/MRI fusion with new optical tracking and marker approach for interventional procedures inside the MRI suite
  99. Impact of different registration methods in MEG source analysis
  100. 3D segmentation of thyroid ultrasound images using active contours
  101. Designing a compact MRI motion phantom
  102. Cerebral cortex classification by conditional random fields applied to intraoperative thermal imaging
  103. Classification of indirect immunofluorescence images using thresholded local binary count features
  104. Analysis of muscle fatigue conditions using time-frequency images and GLCM features
  105. Numerical evaluation of image parameters of ETR-1
  106. Fabrication of a compliant phantom of the human aortic arch for use in Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) experimentation
  107. Effect of the number of electrodes on the reconstructed lung shape in electrical impedance tomography
  108. Hardware dependencies of GPU-accelerated beamformer performances for microwave breast cancer detection
  109. Computer assisted assessment of progressing osteoradionecrosis of the jaw for clinical diagnosis and treatment
  110. Evaluation of reconstruction parameters of electrical impedance tomography on aorta detection during saline bolus injection
  111. Evaluation of open-source software for the lung segmentation
  112. Automatic determination of lung features of CF patients in CT scans
  113. Image analysis of self-organized multicellular patterns
  114. Effect of key parameters on synthesis of superparamagnetic nanoparticles (SPIONs)
  115. Radiopacity assessment of neurovascular implants
  116. Development of a desiccant based dielectric for monitoring humidity conditions in miniaturized hermetic implantable packages
  117. Development of an artifact-free aneurysm clip
  118. Enhancing the regeneration of bone defects by alkalizing the peri-implant zone – an in vitro approach
  119. Rapid prototyping of replica knee implants for in vitro testing
  120. Protecting ultra- and hyperhydrophilic implant surfaces in dry state from loss of wettability
  121. Advanced wettability analysis of implant surfaces
  122. Patient-specific hip prostheses designed by surgeons
  123. Plasma treatment on novel carbon fiber reinforced PEEK cages to enhance bioactivity
  124. Wear of a total intervertebral disc prosthesis
  125. Digital health and digital biomarkers – enabling value chains on health data
  126. Usability in the lifecycle of medical software development
  127. Influence of different test gases in a non-destructive 100% quality control system for medical devices
  128. Device development guided by user satisfaction survey on auricular vagus nerve stimulation
  129. Empirical assessment of the time course of innovation in biomedical engineering: first results of a comparative approach
  130. Effect of left atrial hypertrophy on P-wave morphology in a computational model
  131. Simulation of intracardiac electrograms around acute ablation lesions
  132. Parametrization of activation based cardiac electrophysiology models using bidomain model simulations
  133. Assessment of nasal resistance using computational fluid dynamics
  134. Resistance in a non-linear autoregressive model of pulmonary mechanics
  135. Inspiratory and expiratory elastance in a non-linear autoregressive model of pulmonary mechanics
  136. Determination of regional lung function in cystic fibrosis using electrical impedance tomography
  137. Development of parietal bone surrogates for parietal graft lift training
  138. Numerical simulation of mechanically stimulated bone remodelling
  139. Conversion of engineering stresses to Cauchy stresses in tensile and compression tests of thermoplastic polymers
  140. Numerical examinations of simplified spondylodesis models concerning energy absorption in magnetic resonance imaging
  141. Principle study on the signal connection at transabdominal fetal pulse oximetry
  142. Influence of Siluron® insertion on model drug distribution in the simulated vitreous body
  143. Evaluating different approaches to identify a three parameter gas exchange model
  144. Effects of fibrosis on the extracellular potential based on 3D reconstructions from histological sections of heart tissue
  145. From imaging to hemodynamics – how reconstruction kernels influence the blood flow predictions in intracranial aneurysms
  146. Flow optimised design of a novel point-of-care diagnostic device for the detection of disease specific biomarkers
  147. Improved FPGA controlled artificial vascular system for plethysmographic measurements
  148. Minimally spaced electrode positions for multi-functional chest sensors: ECG and respiratory signal estimation
  149. Automated detection of alveolar arches for nasoalveolar molding in cleft lip and palate treatment
  150. Control scheme selection in human-machine- interfaces by analysis of activity signals
  151. Event-based sampling for reducing communication load in realtime human motion analysis by wireless inertial sensor networks
  152. Automatic pairing of inertial sensors to lower limb segments – a plug-and-play approach
  153. Contactless respiratory monitoring system for magnetic resonance imaging applications using a laser range sensor
  154. Interactive monitoring system for visual respiratory biofeedback
  155. Development of a low-cost senor based aid for visually impaired people
  156. Patient assistive system for the shoulder joint
  157. A passive beating heart setup for interventional cardiology training
Downloaded on 8.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/cdbme-2016-0051/html
Scroll to top button