{"id":215867,"date":"2025-06-13T14:05:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T19:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/scientists-detect-light-passing-through-entire-human-head-opening-new-doors-for-brain-imaging"},"modified":"2025-06-13T14:05:47","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T19:05:47","slug":"scientists-detect-light-passing-through-entire-human-head-opening-new-doors-for-brain-imaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/scientists-detect-light-passing-through-entire-human-head-opening-new-doors-for-brain-imaging","title":{"rendered":"Scientists detect light passing through entire human head, opening new doors for brain imaging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/scientists-detect-light-passing-through-entire-human-head-opening-new-doors-for-brain-imaging2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For decades, scientists have used near-infrared light to study the brain in a noninvasive way. This optical technique, known as fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy), measures how light is absorbed by blood in the brain, to infer activity.<\/p>\n<p>Valued for portability and low cost, fNIRS has a major drawback: it can\u2019t see very deep into the brain. Light typically only reaches the outermost layers of the brain, about 4 centimeters deep\u2014enough to study the surface of the brain, but not deeper regions involved in critical functions like memory, emotion, and movement.<\/p>\n<p>This drawback has restricted the ability to study deeper brain regions without expensive and bulky equipment like MRI machines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For decades, scientists have used near-infrared light to study the brain in a noninvasive way. This optical technique, known as fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy), measures how light is absorbed by blood in the brain, to infer activity. Valued for portability and low cost, fNIRS has a major drawback: it can\u2019t see very deep into the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}