RESEARCH ARTICLE
Long-Wave Infrared Functional Brain Imaging in Human: A Pilot Study
Christian C Joyal*, 1, Mylene Henry2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 1
Last Page: 3
Publisher ID: TONIJ-7-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874440001307010001
PMID: 23400426
PMCID: PMC3565228
Article History:
Received Date: 10/11/2012Revision Received Date: 6/12/2012
Acceptance Date: 7/12/2012
Electronic publication date: 16/1/2013
Collection year: 2013

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Although some authors suggest to use Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) sensors to evaluate brain functioning, the link between emissions of LWIR and mental effort is not established. The goal of this pilot study was to determine whether frontal LWIR emissions vary during execution of neuropsychological tasks known to differentially activate the pre-frontal cortex (simple color presentations, induction of the Stroop effect, and a gambling task with real money). Surprisingly, LWIR emissions as measured with bilateral frontal sensors in 47 participants significantly differed between tasks, in the supposed direction (Color<Stroop<Gambling), in spite of counterbalanced presentations. This pilot study suggests that investigations of convergent validity with other types of brain imaging techniques can be initiated with LWIR imaging. If confirmed, this technique would offer a simple and accessible method to evaluate frontal cortex activation.