Dementia is a global health crisis affecting a staggering 55 million people worldwide with nearly 10 million new cases every year. One promising early biomarker of dementia, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease, are the changes seen in the cerebral waste clearance mechanism known as the glymphatic system. The glymphatic system is mainly made up of a water-like fluid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that covers the entire brain, travels within it and “washes” it. Unfortunately, current work on the glymphatic system is largely on rodent models and more recently, small cohort human studies, albeit using invasive tracers and expensive clinical imaging.
Broadband Near Infrared Spectroscopy (bNIRS) is a portable non-invasive optical brain monitoring system that can estimate concentration changes of different components in tissue (e.g., haemoglobin, water, fat, etc.) based on their optical signatures in the NIR. We propose to extend the capabilities of the current bNIRS system to be able to assess the glymphatic system. This work will provide the much-needed large cohort, naturalistic study capability to assess the clinical importance of glymphatic function in dementia.
| Dr. Deepshikha Acharya |
Department of Engineering |
| Prof. John O'Brien |
Department of Psychiatry |
