Facilities
Laboratory: Optical Brain Imaging Lab (part of Cognitive Neuroengineering and Quantitative Experimental Research (CONQUER) Collaborative) is equipped with the state of the art electronic design, testing and assembly facility. Presently our functional near-infrared (fNIR) spectroscopy systems are designed, manufactured and tested in this laboratory using computer aided design and simulation. This lab is also part of the internal network of the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science & Health Systems and Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, which provides free access to various analysis, computational, statistical, and graphical software packages: MATLAB, Adobe Professional Suite, Sigmaplot, SPSS, NCSS/PASS, C/C++ compilers, Microsoft Visual Studio, LabView, EndNote, Microsoft Office, etc
Clinical Facilities: There are two human experiment rooms dedicated for brain activity monitoring studies. One subject room contains an electrically shielded, sound-attenuated, and temperature-controlled Faraday chamber. A wet room is also available for sterilization of sensor caps, electrodes, etc.
Computer: The CONQUER Collaborative is equipped with state-of-the-art computers for running the neurophysiological data-collection systems. The performers have also their own dedicated workstations.
Office: All performers have dedicated offices in the same facility.
Other: Dark room settings are available for optical sensor measurements.
Subject Rooms:
Major Equipment:
Optical topography system (Hitachi Medical Systems)
ETG 4000 optical topography system that can provide 24 channel topographic images with 0.1Hz sampling rate. The system is portable and compact which is easy to wheel up around the laboratory. It is composed of two 3x3 probe holders, a skull cap on which the probe holders can be mounted, data acquisition, storage and analysis unit with a user-friendly and efficient on-screen interface to generate 2D topographic images of the monitored brain areas. The light sources used in the system are laser diodes of two wavelengths (695nm and 830 nm). Light sources and detectors are coupled to the head through optical fibers. The interface can use RS232 and BNC for external trigger and signal input/output and it is LAN compatible for data sharing. Measurement data can be generated in text or Excel compatible files. Topographic images are available in BMP or AVI formats.
fNIR system (fNIR Devices, LLC)
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy system operating in continuous wave modality. It consists of: 1) a flexible sensor pad hosting 4 light sources and 10 detectors; 2) a control box; and 3) a laptop for data acquisition and storage. The system is capable of collecting 16 voxel measurements from dorsolateral and inferior frontal cortices with a sampling rate of 2Hz. It is small, lightweight, comfortable, portable and rugged. Light sources are composed of three built in LEDs at wavelengths 730, 805 and 850 nm. Raw intensity measurements and hemodynamic signals can be separately generated in text and Excel compatible files.
EEG acquisition system
It is a commercially available EEG system by Neuroscan System (El Paso, TX). It includes:
- a standard EEG cap with embedded sensor and capable to accommodate additional loose sensors (e.g. for the acquisition of electro-oculogram)
- an amplifier box NuAmps
- a PC running SCAN software for the data acquisition and analysis.
EEG Neurofeedback System
It is a commercially available 32 channel EEG system with auditory and visual feedback; specialized 3D games for neurofeedback; multi-channel custom protocol constructor; pause and continue ability during training.
Stimulus-presentation system
It is a commercially available stimulus-presentation system by Neuroscan System (El Paso, TX). It includes:
- a PC running the STIM software that allows to design sequences of visual and/or auditory stimuli
- a second monitor attached to the PC and for the subject’s use
- a response pad used if active responses are needed form the subject; and
- a triggering box that records the subject’s responses and that can be interfaced with the EEG acquisition system in order to add stimulus-related markers for the recorded EEG data.