Fusion of fNIRS and fMRI data: identifying when and where hemodynamic signals are changing in human brains

In this study we implemented a new imaging method to fuse functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) measurements and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of the hemodynamic responses with high spatiotemporal resolution across the brain. We evaluated this method using multimodal data acquired from human right finger tapping tasks. And we found the proposed method is able to clearly identify from the linked components of fMRI and fNIRS where and when the hemodynamic signals are changing. In particular, the estimated associations between fNIRS and fMRI will be displayed as time varying spatial fMRI maps along with the fNIRS time courses. In addition, the joint components between fMRI and fNIRS are combined together to generate full spatiotemporal “snapshots” and movies, which provides an excellent way to examine the dynamic interplay between hemodynamic fNIRS and fMRI measurements.