Functional brain imaging of optical topography.

Hitachi medical corporation developed and produced a new modality called Optical Topography System "ETG-100". This system uses near infrared light as in spectroscopy. ETG-100 measures the oxy hemoglobin, deoxy hemoglobin and total hemoglobin volume changes in cerebral cortex. This optical topography system has various features, i.e., displaying the hemoglobin volume change in 2 dimensional images, non-invasiveness, compactness, low cost and less patient restraint. This system is now being used for the research of higher-order brain functions, for example language function, language recognition. Research of brain function disease of new born babies, cerebral blood flow infarction detection are expected.