Intraoperative functional and metabolic brain mapping using hyperspectral imaging

The acquisition of narrow wavelength bands in the Near-Infrared (NIR) range using hyperspectral imaging have the potential to yield functional and metabolic information during a neurosurgical operation. The analysis of the reflectance spectra through the modified Beer-Lambert law and Monte Carlo simulations enable us to measure the concentration changes of oxy, deoxygenated hemoglobin and cytochrome-c-oxidase during the video acquisition. A functional model has been implemented to evaluate the functional brain areas following neuronal activation by physiological stimuli. The results show a good correlation between the computed quantitative functional maps and the brain areas identified by electrical brain stimulation. This work demonstrates that a quantitative modeling of the brain hemodynamic and metabolic biomarkers could evaluate in a robust way the functional areas and the cellular energy metabolism during neurosurgery.