Accompanying neuroactivation, is a coupled hemodynamic response that is sensitive to a host of features of coordinated brain function. Relating these measures to the seemingly endless breadth of human behavior is a principal aim of many scientific investigations.
Learning, language acquisition, sensory and motor functions, emotion, social interactions, and the influence of a host of disease processes all can be explored from measures of the fNIRS signal. Most important, the resources needed to accomplish such measures are easily made wearable, resistant to motion artifacts, economical and can be performed in the natural environment. Further, employing harmless light sources, NIRS is safe for studies with infants and adults as well.