L’Année psychologique

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is an optical imaging technique that measures brain activity by monitoring cortical oxygenation changes. It is portable, non-invasive and has good motion tolerance. In the last thirty years, these features have led NIRS to be used in a wide range of applications. This brief review considers the advantages of NIRS and its potential use in psychological research by giving examples of different paradigms that have been applied in cognitive, developmental and clinical domains. The principal aim of this work is to propose a new starting point to those in the field of psychological research who is interested in learning about the technique. First, we examine its use in healthy groups in simple motor, auditory and visual stimulation as well as in tasks involving higher cognitive demands. We then review the main NIRS studies in the field of developmental psychology related to infants, children and older adults. This is followed by possible applications with specific clinical populations, in particular patients with psychiatric disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. We finally conclude by presenting the main advantages and limits of NIRS compared with other neuroimaging techniques, highlighting the methodological challenges facing its use with special populations in real life settings. ∗Corresponding author: Laura Ferreri, UMR-CNRS 5022 Laboratoire d’Etude de l’Apprentissage et du Développement, Department of Psychology, University of Bourgogne, Pôle AAFE-Esplanade Erasme, BP 26513, F-21065 Dijon. Email: [email protected] Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the European Project EBRAMUS (European BRAin and MUSic) ITN – Grant Agreement Number 218357. The authors also thank Christopher Moulin for insightful comments on the manuscript. L’année psychologique/Topics in Cognitive Psychology, 2014, 114, 537-569 538 Laura Ferreri Emmanuel Bigand Stéphane Perrey Aurélia Bugaiska L’utilisation de la Spectroscopie proche infrarouge (NIRS) pour les recherches en psychologie : une brève synthèse