HD-DOT: A new neuroimaging technique that may help reveal what people are seing

NEUROSCIENCE

This emerging technology allows for the decoding of activity in parts of the brain responsible for vision.

Utilizing high-density optical tomography (HD-DOT), neuroscientists decoded activity from areas of the brain responsible for visual processing to determine what research participants were seeing.

HD-DOT is a newly developing neuroimaging technology which uses an array of light sources and detectors to measure brain activity to conclude about the occurring visual processes. Kalyan Tripathy and researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO evaluated the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of HD-DOT in patients by beaming light towards the head from a wearable apparatus. The light illuminates blood rushing to the parts of the brain corresponding with neural activity, which detectors located on the apparatus then use to infer what the person is seeing.

This advancement may have significant implications toward restoring communication to patients with neurological disorders.

           

Tripathy, K., et al. (30 Oct 2020). Decoding visual information from high-density diffuse optical tomography neuroimaging data. Neuroimage, (226). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33137479/