Naturalistic brain imaging with wearable fNIRS and DOT: A perspective for multimodal acquisition and data driven analysis.

Advances in wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and diffuse optical tomography (DOT) are rapidly expanding opportunities to complement fMRI by studying the brain in ecologically valid environments. Transitioning from well-controlled laboratory settings to the dynamic, complex, and multisensory environments of the everyday world presents a range of significant challenges, particularly in signal acquisition and processing. However, the increasing ease of acquiring larger data volumes also paves the way for new, powerful, data-driven approaches that can be used as a remedy. A typical goal is to improve the contrast of the hemodynamic response by better differentiating evoked from non-evoked and cerebral from non-cerebral physiological activity and behavior. This is particularly relevant for biomarker extraction and single-trial analysis, e.g., in brain-computer interfaces or neuroergonomics. In my talk, I will examine recent advances in mobile brain monitoring using fNIRS/DOT, discuss some of the current data science challenges, and demonstrate how we have begun to tackle them.