TinyIOMS: A Wireless Miniaturised System for Monitoring Hemodynamics from Surface Brain Regions

Studies to understand blood flow-related changes in the brain are important to the neuroscience community. However, lightweight, standalone and tether-free devices for performing such studies in freely moving animals are limited. In this work, we present a novel miniaturised intrinsic optical measurement system, called TinyIOMS (i.e., Tiny intrinsic optical measurement system). TinyIOMS is a standalone, miniaturized (1.2 g), low power and cost-effective, head-mountable point detector system to monitor hemodynamics. Here, we present the electronic characterization of the device and show a proof-of-concept study for detecting hemodynamics changes through an optical liquid phantom-based study. Results are promising and motivate us to perform preclinical studies linking surface cortical hemodynamics with behaviour in freely moving rodents.