Lunchtime Seminar: Dr Rob Cooper

There are surprisingly few physical mechanisms that can be exploited by scientists to monitor the state of the human brain without risking damage to it. There are fewer still that can be harnessed in a way that permits the study of the brain in unrestricted environments: outside of the lab, at the bedside, or in freely-moving subjects. One such mechanism is optical absorption. Our ability to use light to study human brain function was first demonstrated over 25 years ago, but the last five years have seen a dramatic acceleration in the advancement of optical neuroimaging techniques and technologies. In this talk, Dr Rob Cooper will discuss the progress that has been made at UCL and elsewhere to establish diffuse optical tomography as a standard research tool for neuroscience, and outline how this technology can be expected to progress over the next five years.