We are pleased to announce the BabyBrite, the first fNIRS device designed specifically for use in early childhood developmental research! Over the past few years, fNIRS has become a more prevalent technology used to tackle different questions on typical and atypical infant development. Research topics include language, speech and visual perception, social communication, parent child interaction and much more. Testing young children can definitely be fun, but it also comes with challenges. We asked several developmental researchers to point out the main difficulties they typically encounter and what features an infant-friendly NIRS should have – based on their feedback, the BabyBrite was born! The BabyBrite was developed to be as comfortable a system as possible. It uses flat optode tips, soft optode holders, and everything is made of biocompatible, non-irritating materials. The cables from the optodes to the system’s control unit are longer than on a typical Brite, allowing it to be mounted on the child’s body, or somewhere near them (side of a crib, on a car seat, etc.). Even with the focus on comfort, the system retains all the powerful features built into a standard Brite – multi-gain power control, ambient light correction, improved optical density range, flexible optode templates and interoptode distances, 24 bit data, a more stable Bluetooth protocol, and increased battery life. No other system is as well suited for developmental research with fNIRS!
