Changes of cerebral blood oxygenation and optical pathlength during activation and deactivation in the prefrontal cortex measured by time-resolved near infrared spectroscopy

To determine the alterations in optical characteristics and cerebral blood oxygenation (CBO) during activation and deactivation, we evaluated the changes in mean optical pathlength (MOP) and CBO induced by a verbal fluency task (VFT) and driving simulation in the right and left prefrontal cortex (PFC), employing a newly developed time-resolved near infrared spectroscopy, which allows quantitative measurements of the evoked-CBO changes by determining the MOP with a sampling time of 1 s. The results demonstrated differences in MOP in the foreheads with the subjects and wavelength; however, there was no significant difference between the right and left foreheads (p > 0.05). Also, both the VFT and driving simulation task did not affect the MOP significantly as compared to that before the tasks (p > 0.05). In the bilateral PFCs, the VFT caused increases of oxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin associated with a decrease of deoxyhemoglobin, while the driving simulation task caused decreases of oxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin associated with an increase of deoxyhemoglobin; there were no significant differences in evoked-CBO changes between the right and left PFC. The present results will be useful for quantitative measurement of hemodynamic changes during activation and deactivation in the adults by near infrared spectroscopy.