Instruments

The core facility is home to a variety of imaging instruments ranging from advanced laser scanning microscopes to ultrasound imaging systems. Though our central focus is supporting and using these instruments in neuroscience research, these techniques can be applied towards other aspects of biomedical imaging. On this page, you will find technical information about the various imaging systems that is available for core users.

fNIRS

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a wearable brain monitoring system that uses near-infrared optical light to measure changes in the cortical hemodynamic response.

    Systems and parts

    • fNIRS System I: CW-NIRS System utilizing laser diodes at 690 and 830nm (TechEn Inc. MA, USA). The TechEn system is a multichannel continuous wave optical imager consisted of 32 frequency-encoded lasers (half of them at 690 and the other half at 830 nm) and 32 avalanche photo-diode detectors.
    • fNIRS System II: NinjaNIRS is a BU home-built modular and fully scalable wearable NIRS device utilizing optodes with of one dual wavelength LED (730/850 nm) and one photodiode
    • fNIRS Head Caps: 3D printing of NinjaCaps
    • Fibers: Source/detector optical fibers for fNIRS System I

    fNIRS Assistance

    • fNIRS Data Collection: Training and supervision on fNIRS data collection with both fNIRS System I and II.
    • fNIRS Data Analysis: Training and supervision on fNIRS data analysis using HOMER3 and AtlasViewer.

    Questions – Please fill out this form with any questions you may have.

     

    fUS/PAT

    Verasonics

    • We have the 256 channel Vantage functional ultrasound system from Verasonics. You can see some of the things we are doing with it here.
    •  fUS User Guide

    fUS/PAT Assistance

    • Training and experimental assistance is available through the core facility.

    Questions – Please fill out this form with any questions you may have.

     

    2 Photon Microscopy

    Bruker System

    • We have a Bruker Ultima Investigator Two-Photon Microscope with fluorescence and phosphorescence lifetime capabilities.
    • Bruker 2-photon user guide

    Questions – Please fill out this form with any questions you may have.

     

    Speckle / Spectral / SFDI Imaging

    This is a home built wide-field microscope that can simultaneously obtain relative changes to cerebral blood flow using laser speckle contrast imaging and changes to oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin using intrinsic optical signal imaging. Details of the combined speckle and spectral imaging system is described here. This system has also been integrated with a spatial frequency domain imaging setup based on the designs provided by Professor Roblyer’s group as described here.

    Questions – Please fill out this form with any questions you may have.

     

    Optical Coherence Tomography

    We have a Thorlabs Telesto OCT system with an integrated laser speckle (LS) camera.

    More details about OCT can be found on our OCT research page.

    Questions – Please fill out this form with any questions you may have.

     

    Microscope Imaging Assistance

    Information for assistance with the use of specific instruments can be found on the Services page.