Laser-Stirnband erkennt Schlaganfallrisiko nicht-invasiv in Echtzeit | Forscher haben ein tragbares laserbasiertes Gerät entwickelt, das Veränderungen und Volumen des Blutflusses im Gehirn überwacht, wenn ein Patient den Atem anhält.

From the article: A laser-driven device that offers instant feedback on a patient’s stroke risk could revolutionize current difficult methods of accurate assessment and provide a portable, affordable and non-invasive way for clinicians to make life-saving interventions.

[Researchers](https://opg.optica.org/boe/fulltext.cfm?uri=boe-15-10-6083&id=560941) from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California (USC) have developed a wearable laser-based device that monitors brain blood flow changes and volume when a patient holds their breath. Analysis of this test in real time can provide instant feedback as to the patient’s stroke risk.

“With this device, for the first time, we are going to have a way of knowing if the risk of someone having a stroke in the future is significant or not based on a physiological measurement,” said the study’s co-lead author Simon Mahler, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. “We think this can really revolutionize the way stroke risk is assessed and will eventually help doctors determine if a patient’s risk is stable or worsening.”

The device shines an infrared laser light through the skull and into the brain, while an adjacent camera collects data measuring light bouncing back after being ‘scattered’ by the blood flow within blood vessels. This method, known as speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS), essentially shows the rate of blood flow by how quickly the scattering changes.