Every year 3.4 million babies worldwide are born with a birth defect. Of these, congenital heart defects (CHD) are the most frequent. About 40% of these infants need a cardiac surgical intervention during their first year of life with a subsequent stay in the intensive care unit. Most of these babies survive to adulthood. Nonetheless, they are at risk of suffering from deficits in their neurological development due to brain blood flow and perfusion alterations happening during the intervention. These alterations result often in learning disabilities, leading to low quality of life for these patients and their families, constituting a major challenge to public health. To implement appropriate neuroprotection strategies, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms of brain damage.

This line of research aims to validate a device which integrates a photonic technology for monitoring cerebral hemodynamics with standard electrophysiology. Such a device allows non-invasive and continuous brain monitoring and has the potential to change the neuroprotection strategies for these critically ill patients during their most delicate days in the hospital. Identifying brain function alterations during surgery and during stays in the intensive care unit will allow doctors to analyze why brain disorders frequently occur in the postnatal period and to pinpoint the types of clinical interventions that can improve the neurological outcome of these infants and ultimately their quality of life, as infants, young persons and adults.

This project has been partially funded by:

(PI17/02198; PI20/00298 )