Welcome to the openfnirs.org website!
Our mission is to foster the development of an fNIRS ecosystem and to promote the open dissemination of fNIRS hardware and software, as well as provide access to resources, documentation and training opportunities for fNIRS users.
We are funded by the National Institute of Health NIH grant R24-NS104096 “Establishing an fNIRS Ecosystem for Open Software-Hardware Dissemination.”
What is fNIRS?
Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive, portable method employing near-infrared light propagating diffusely through the scalp and brain, for functional monitoring and imaging of human brain hemodynamics.
This neuroimaging modality is particularly suited for populations and studies where other imaging options are limited, such as infants, children, and volunteers/patients interacting freely with their environment. fNIRS has found a wide range of applications to study normal and pathological brain physiology, including perception and cognition, motor control, psychiatric conditions (depression, schizophrenia), and behavioral and cognitive development in infants and children.
More background information on NIRS can be found on the Scholarpedia webpage. More can be read in a 2017 special section in Neurophotonics that spanned 3 issues with 41 papers (part I, part II, part III). In addition, a 2014 special issue of NeuroImage provides a thorough review of the field, as well as publications on state-of-the-art applications. The introduction to the special issue can be found here. The Society for Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy runs a conference every two years and hosts a Facebook page from which one can connect with the international fNIRS community.
Who are we?
The openfnirs.org website is developed by:
- The Boston University NeuroPhotonics Center under NIH grant R24-NS104096,
- Alexander von Lühmann who developed the opennirs.org website offering documentation and files for open NIRS instrumentation hardware,
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