Acquisition of a dual fNIRS to Department of Psychology

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We will purchase a dual functional near infrared spectroscopy system to support a project on mother-infant social interaction and synchrony. The system will be used simultaneously with mothers and their typically-developing infants. The project requires infants and their caregivers to be able to move around and interct normally and so comfort and freedom of movement is important.

Given the special population with which we work (young infants) and the requirements of the research project, the design of this particular system offers the best option for us to maximize the success of our project.

Our project involves measurements of brain activation during caregiver-infant social interaction. This means that babies need to be able to move freely around and interact as normal. For this to be possible, we need a lightweight and entirely wireless fNIRS system that does not constrain infants’ movements. We also need it to be very lightweight (<350g) and built specifically with infants’ heads in mind. This means it should be almost imperceptible to the infant who is wearing the cap. It should also have maximum flexibility to allow us to switch between montages between studies (and days), so a simple with click-in/out optodes is required.

Furthermore, as the study will involve dual fNIRS data collection (from both the mother and infant simultaneously), we require a system that is purpose built for this, and with analysis software with ease of use that will allow data analysis of simultaneously collected fNIRS data.