Impact of averaging fNIRS regional coherence data when monitoring people with long term post-concussion symptoms

SIGNIFICANCE: Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), with its measure of delta hemoglobin concentration, has shown promise as a monitoring tool for the functional assessment of neurological disorders and brain injury. Analysis of fNIRS data often involves averaging data from several channel pairs in a region. Although this greatly reduces the processing time, it is uncertain how it affects the ability to detect changes post injury. AIM: We aimed to determine how averaging data within regions impacts the ability to differentiate between post-concussion and healthy controls. APPROACH: We compared interhemispheric coherence data from 16 channel pairs across the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during a task and a rest period. We compared the statistical power for differentiating groups that was obtained when undertaking no averaging, vs. averaging data from 2, 4, or 8 source detector pairs. RESULTS: Coherence was significantly reduced in the concussion group compared with controls when no averaging was undertaken. Averaging all 8 channel pairs before undertaking the coherence analysis resulted in no group differences. CONCLUSIONS: Averaging between fiber pairs may eliminate the ability to detect group differences. It is proposed that even adjacent fiber pairs may have unique information, so averaging must be done with caution when monitoring brain disorders or injury.