Monitoring closed head injury induced changes in brain physiology with orthogonal diffuse near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy

We applied an orthogonal diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (o-DRS) to assess brain physiology following closed head injury (CHI). CHI was induced in anesthetized male mice by weight-drop device using ~50gram cylindrical metal falling from a height of 90 cm onto the intact scalp. A total of twenty-six mice were used in the experiments divided randomly into three groups as follows: Group 1 (n=11) consisted of injured mice monitored for 1 hour every 10 minutes. Group 2 (n=10) were the control mice not experience CHI. Group 3 (n=5) consisted of injured mice monitored every minute up to 20 minutes. Measurement of optical quantities of brain tissue (absorption and reduced scattering coefficients) in the near-infrared window from 650 to 1000 nm were carried out by employing different source-detector distances and locations to provide depth sensitivity. With respect to baseline, we found difference in brain hemodynamic properties following injury. In addition, o-DRS successfully evaluate the structural variations likely from evolving cerebral edema throughout exploring the scattering spectral shape.