Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
fNIRS is now a practical bedside neuroimaging modality that is capable of continuous, non-sedated monitoring in healthy and critically ill neonates. This webinar will review optimized acquisition protocols for neonates including probe placement, real-time motion-artefact mitigation and short high-density fNIRS set-ups, which have been implemented in a training programme for clinical fellows and NICU nurses.
The programme is developing fNIRS biomarkers that quantify both healthy brain maturation and injury in the neonatal period. To date, more than 250 bedside scans have been completed in term newborns and NICU patients, even in infants receiving respiratory support.
The key findings to data included both normative trajectories and clinically relevant biomarkers in neonates. Normative data collected in the healthy newborn cohort showed a progressive strengthening of sensorimotor connectivity in the first postnatal week, establishing reference curves for early developmental assessments. In the clinical cohorts, graph-theory metrics derived from fNIRS differentiated severities of brain injuries, while the integration of three-dimensional cranial ultrasound with fNIRS connectivity predicted brain repair before conventional ultrasound thresholds were met.
Collectively, these studies position bedside fNIRS measures as cost-effective tool for future neuroprotective trials, with the potential to enable early patient stratification, real-time treatment monitoring and the advancement of applications in precision neurocritical care.
fNIRS is now a practical bedside neuroimaging modality that is capable of continuous, non-sedated monitoring in healthy and critically ill neonates. This webinar will review optimized acquisition protocols for neonates including probe placement, real-time motion-artefact mitigation and short high-density fNIRS set-ups, which have been implemented in a training programme for clinical fellows and NICU nurses.
The programme is developing fNIRS biomarkers that quantify both healthy brain maturation and injury in the neonatal period. To date, more than 250 bedside scans have been completed in term newborns and NICU patients, even in infants receiving respiratory support.
The key findings to data included both normative trajectories and clinically relevant biomarkers in neonates. Normative data collected in the healthy newborn cohort showed a progressive strengthening of sensorimotor connectivity in the first postnatal week, establishing reference curves for early developmental assessments. In the clinical cohorts, graph-theory metrics derived from fNIRS differentiated severities of brain injuries, while the integration of three-dimensional cranial ultrasound with fNIRS connectivity predicted brain repair before conventional ultrasound thresholds were met.
Collectively, these studies position bedside fNIRS measures as cost-effective tool for future neuroprotective trials, with the potential to enable early patient stratification, real-time treatment monitoring and the advancement of applications in precision neurocritical care.
