Simultaneous EEG Acquisition and Portable Near Infrared Spectroscopy for Recognition of Traumatic Brain Injury Severity and Outcome Assessments in Far

In the battlefield setting, it is necessary to triage patients with severe injuries. With both open and closed head injuries, the most important factor determining whether or not a patient requires emergency surgery, is the presence of an intracranial mass lesion. CT scanning is the gold standard for identification and localization of traumatic intracranial hematomas. In the battlefield as well in rural areas of the US and in underdeveloped areas of the world, CTs are not available. In our pilot studies conducted at Baylor College of Medicine by Dr. Claudia Robertson and Dr. Shankar Gopinath using the RunManT NIR monitor, sensitivity for extracerebral (epidural and subdural) hematomas was 100% and sensitivity for intracerebral hematomas was 98%. There were no false positives. Investigations with EEG have accurately identified patients with closed head injury, including assessment of severity of damage and prediction of outcomes using EEG coherence and phase analyses. Therefore a dual modalities NIR + EEG system with an integrated display will enhance the statistical power of intracranial hematoma detection. Furthermore the combined metrics will provide with very significant information about a patient's physiological states such as severity of brain damage and functional changes due to head trauma.