FEASIBILITY OF INTRACRANIAL NEAR-INFRARED OPTICAL-SCANNING

Light injected at a point on a surface of a scattering medium is emitt ed at the surface after traveling a quasisemicircular path deep into t he medium. This phenomenon can be exploited to detect objects immersed in the medium from time-resolved measurements of light intensity at t he surface. Our experiments on model systems demonstrate that absorbin g objects, surrounded by bone and other scattering material, can be de tected. The technique yields surface images of absorbing objects subme rged in a scattering medium. Images of the same phantoms inside the ca vity of a skull can be obtained by the same technique.