By providing vital information about brain function at the cot side, a portable brain scanner under development would avoid the need to move critically ill babies to conventional scanning facilities.

Developed at University College London, the MONSTIR prototype uses optical tomography to generate images showing how the brain is working. Light passes through body tissue and is then analysed by computer to provide information about the tissue.

A helmet incorporating 32 light detectors and 32 sources of safe, low-intensity laser light is placed on the baby’s head. The sources produce short flashes and the detectors measure the amount of light that reaches them through the brain and the time the light takes to travel. A software uses this data to build up a 3D image taht shows which parts of the brain are receiving oxygen, where blood is situated and evidence of brain damage.

MONSTIR is the size of a fridge-freezer and takes around 8 minutes to generate an image. The aim is to produce a version that is half this size, 5 times faster, even more accurate and geared for clinical use.

Via The Engineer.