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. 2022 Jul 15:13:934731.
doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.934731. eCollection 2022.

The Quantitative Associations Between Near Infrared Spectroscopic Cerebrovascular Metrics and Cerebral Blood Flow: A Scoping Review of the Human and Animal Literature

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The Quantitative Associations Between Near Infrared Spectroscopic Cerebrovascular Metrics and Cerebral Blood Flow: A Scoping Review of the Human and Animal Literature

Alwyn Gomez et al. Front Physiol. .

Abstract

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) is an important physiologic parameter that is vital for proper cerebral function and recovery. Current widely accepted methods of measuring CBF are cumbersome, invasive, or have poor spatial or temporal resolution. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) based measures of cerebrovascular physiology may provide a means of non-invasively, topographically, and continuously measuring CBF. We performed a systematically conducted scoping review of the available literature examining the quantitative relationship between NIRS-based cerebrovascular metrics and CBF. We found that continuous-wave NIRS (CW-NIRS) was the most examined modality with dynamic contrast enhanced NIRS (DCE-NIRS) being the next most common. Fewer studies assessed diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) and frequency resolved NIRS (FR-NIRS). We did not find studies examining the relationship between time-resolved NIRS (TR-NIRS) based metrics and CBF. Studies were most frequently conducted in humans and animal studies mostly utilized large animal models. The identified studies almost exclusively used a Pearson correlation analysis. Much of the literature supported a positive linear relationship between changes in CW-NIRS based metrics, particularly regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO2), and changes in CBF. Linear relationships were also identified between other NIRS based modalities and CBF, however, further validation is needed.

Keywords: biomedical optics; cerebral blood flow (CBF); cerebrovascular physiology; near infrared spectroscopy; scoping review.

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Conflict of interest statement

DC is affiliated with the Pan Am Clinic Foundation which receives general education and research support from ConMed Linvatec, Ossur, Zimmer Biomet, and Arthrex. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
A PRISMA flow-diagram of the systematically conducted scoping review of the literature.

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