Developing customized NIRS-EEG for infant sleep research: methodological considerations

Gossé, Louisa and Pinti, Paola and Wiesemann, F. and Elwell, Clare and Jones, Emily J.H. (2023) Developing customized NIRS-EEG for infant sleep research: methodological considerations. Neurophotonics 10 (3), ISSN 2329-423X.

Abstract

Significance: Studies using simultaneous fNIRS-EEG during natural sleep in infancy are rare. New developments for combined fNIRS-EEG for sleep research are needed that ensure optimal comfort whilst ensuring good coupling and data quality. Aim: We describe the steps towards developing a comfortable, wearable NIRS-EEG headgear adapted specifically for sleeping infants ages 5-9 months and present the experimental procedures and data quality to conduct infant sleep research using combined fNIRS-EEG. Approach: N=49 5-to-9-months-old infants participated. In phase 1, N=26 (10=slept) using the non-wearable version of the NIRS-EEG headgear with 13-channel-wearable EEG and 39-channel fiber-based NIRS. In phase 2, N=23 infants (21=slept) with the wireless version of the headgear with 20-channel-wearable EEG and 47-channel-wearable-NIRS. We used QT-NIRS to assess NIRS data quality based on: good time window percentage, included channels, nap duration and valid EEG percentage. Results: Infant nap rate during phase 1 was ~40% (45% valid EEG data) and increased to 90% during phase 2 (100% valid EEG data). Infants slept significantly longer with the wearable system than the non-wearable system. However, there were more included good channels based on QT-NIRS in study phase 1 (61 %) than 2 (50 %), though this difference was not statistically significant. Conclusions: We demonstrated the usability of an integrated NIRS-EEG headgear during natural infant sleep both with a non-wearable and wearable NIRS system. The wearable EEG-NIRS headgear represents a good compromise between data quality, opportunities of applications (home visits, toddlers) and experiment success (infants’ comfort, longer sleep duration, opportunities for caregiver-child interaction).

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