Noninvasive monitoring of brain edema after hypoxia in newborn piglets

Abstract

BackgroundDevelopment of cerebral edema after brain injury carries a high risk for brain damage and death. The present study tests the ability of a noninvasive cerebral edema monitoring system that uses near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) with water as the chromophore of interest to detect brain edema following hypoxia.MethodsVentilated piglets were exposed to hypoxia for 1 h, and then returned to normal oxygen levels for 4 h. An NIRS sensor was placed on the animal's head at baseline, and changes in light attenuation were converted to changes in HO. Cerebral water content and aquaporin-4 protein (AQP4) expression were measured.ResultsThe system detected changes in NIRS-derived water signal as early as 2 h after hypoxia, and provided fivefold signal amplification, representing a 10% increase in brain water content and a sixfold increase in AQP4, 4 h after hypoxia. Changes in water signal correlated well with changes in cerebral water content (R=0.74) and AQP4 expression (R=0.97) in the piglet brain.ConclusionThe data show that NIRS can detect cerebral edema early in the injury process, thus providing an opportunity to initiate therapy at an earlier and more effective time-point after an insult than is available with current technology.

Comparison of electrical impedance tomography and intracranial pressure during dehydration treatment of cerebral edema

“…Although CT and MRI are useful for diagnosis of cerebral edema, these imaging modalities are difficult to continuously monitor the change in them and reflect the real-time effects of any treatment. Other non-invasive methods that enable direct and real-time monitoring of changes in brain water content such as magnetic induction and near-infrared spectroscopy are known but still in animal experiments (Li et al, 2017; Malaeb et al, 2018). A harmless imaging technology used to monitor the dynamic changes in the amount of fluid within the brain is demanded for assessing the development and treatment of cerebral edema in clinical practice.…”

Development and characterization of transfontanelle photoacoustic imaging system for detection of intracranial hemorrhages and measurement of brain oxygenation: Ex-vivo

“…TFUSI has limited sensitivity and specificity for the detection of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) (without obvious blood clots in the normal-size brain ventricles and cisterns), especially SAH with low-concentration blood in CSF, i.e., < 10% [13] , [25] . Also, TFUSI is unable to detect vasogenic edema following hemorrhage or ischemia/reperfusion injury [34] .…”