Gowerlabs LUMO fNIRS

What is LUMO?

The LUMO system, created by rapidly-growing optical neuroimaging technology company Gowerlabs, is a state-of-the-art solution for neuroscience researchers looking to use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) imaging techniques.

Comprised of a unique, three-piece ecosystem (the LUMO tile, cap, and hub), the LUMO system is a wearable, modular, and high-density fNIRS system that offers researchers incredible functional imaging capabilities and unprecedented experimental flexibility.

LUMO's technology is able to provide continuous, high-density multi-distance sampling, helping to reduce false positives with its inherent short-separation channels. With a lightweight design, LUMO requires no cumbersome optical fibres, making it suitable for use across all ages and environments. Its flexible configuration lets researchers easily and instantly switch between a different cap and array configurations, while the unique scalable design of the system enables the researcher to upgrade their system as research requirements expand and change.

LUMOTILE

The LUMOTILE is one of three pieces of groundbreaking technology that come together to create the LUMO fNIRS ecosystem. The modular construction of the LUMO system is comprised of a number of independent, hexagonal sensor tiles that can be quickly and easily connected to any cap at any desired location in order to construct a high-density fNIRS or diffuse optical tomography (DOT) array.

Providing unrivalled neuroimaging flexibility, just two LUMO tiles can provide as many as 48 fNIRS channels, with source-detector separations ranging from 10mm to 50mm.

Key features of LUMOTILE:

• Each LUMOTILE contains three dual-wavelength sources and four detectors;
• All tiles benefit from an anti-light-piping design and construction;
• High-quality optical filters within each tile maximise ambient light rejection;
• LUMOTILE's ergonomic design ensures that the cap connection process is simple and fast;
• The system has been designed to ensure that it works seamlessly with 3D positioning systems;
• LUMOTILE offers intra-tile measurements at 10 mm and 20 mm separation, with cross-tile measurements up to 50 mm;
• Lightweight design: each tile weighs just 6.2g.

LUMOCAP

Featuring a flexible, stretchable, and ergonomic design, each LUMOCAP is made from a flexible, high-quality neoprene material to ensure maximum subject comfort.

Each LUMOCAP features a set of 'docks', into which any LUMOTILE can be inserted. This flexible construction makes the array configuration for any desired fNIRS experiment fast and simple for the researcher. All docks on the cap are connected together using a state-of-the-art flexible printed circuit design that allows each cap to stretch, ensuring that it can comfortably fit various subjects' head shapes.

Inside the cap, specially constructed light guides comb through the subject's hair to make direct contact with the scalp. These light guides are available in two different variations in order to accommodate subjects with different hair types and from different populations, and all guides can be removed post-experiment to allow for thorough cleaning and disinfecting.

To ensure the best fit across all subjects, bespoke caps with custom-designed arrays are available in all sizes ranging from infant to adult.

Key features of the LUMOCAP include:

• A flexible, high-quality construction of neoprene;
• A range of cap circumferences, from 34cm to 64cm;
• An adjustable chin strap helps to align the cap correctly to the head;
• 10-10 positioning markers;
• Velcro cable strain relief;
• Customisable dock layouts for different fNIRS experiments;
• Removable light guides.

LUMOHUB

The LUMOHUB is a compact, user-friendly control device for the LUMO system. Offering full control via cable or wireless, LUMOHUB provides researchers with complete experimental flexibility.

When the LUMOHUB is operating in cabled mode, each LUMOCAP is connected to the hub by a flexible, lightweight cable, with the hub then connecting to a control laptop via a USB connection. Each LUMOHUB can be connected to up to three caps simultaneously to allow for multi-subject hyperscanning.

LUMOHUB: AIR (Under Development)

Enabling the fully wireless operation of the LUMO system, the wireless LUMOHUB: AIR system is designed to be worn on the subject's upper arm or tucked into a pocket. This system is perfectly suited to wireless neuroimaging applications, including studies of movement, of naturalistic stimuli, and of infants in an everyday environment.

Watch a demonstration of LUMO in action:

Why choose a LUMO system?

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been increasing in popularity amongst neuroscientists, doctors, and psychologists as an extremely promising neuroimaging technology.

Most fNIRS solutions are plagued by issues of low image resolution, uneven brain sensitivity, and the need to apply cumbersome optical fibres to the scalp of every subject, which has massively limited the application of fNIRS technologies.

By allowing measurement channels to be formed from a very wide range of source-detector distances across multiple tiles, the LUMO system provides consistent, even coverage of the subject's brain. With LUMO, researchers can be thoroughly confident that they will not miss any area of the cortex as a result of sparse, uneven sampling rates.

High-density sampling has been extensively demonstrated to provide more reliable measurements of brain function than traditional functional near-infrared spectroscopy approaches. NIRS systems that only measure at one distance (for example, 30mm) are highly susceptible to subject contamination arising from the scalp. LUMO's unique design provides multiple short-separation channels for every source and detector, which allows the scalp signal to be detected, isolated, and removed. Only with this high-density sampling can fNIRS users be confident that the signal they record is truly from the brain.

Comparison between standard fNIRS configurations and LUMO

Left: a typical optical fibre array consisting of 10 source and 10 detector locations arranged in a grid design to provide 30 fNIRS channels all with a separation of 30 mm.

Right: the 12-tile LUMO prefrontal array provides more than 400 fNIRS channels with separations in the range of 10 to 40 mm. LUMO provides an average cortical sensitivity 100x that of traditional fNIRS.

Watch a demonstration of how to set up LUMO: