Near-infrared diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is increasingly utilized to study relative changes in skeletal muscle blood flow. However, most diffuse correlation spectrometers assume that tissue optical properties- such as absorption (μa) and reduced scattering (μ's) coefficients- remain constant during physiological provocations, which is untrue for skeletal muscle. Here, we interrogate how changes in tissue μa and μ's affect DCS calculations of blood flow index (BFI). We recalculated BFI using raw autocorrelation curves and μa/μ's values recorded during a reactive hyperemia protocol in 16 healthy young individuals. First, we show that incorrectly assuming baseline μa and μ's substantially affects peak BFI and BFI slope when expressed in absolute terms (cm2/s, p<0.01) but these differences are abolished when expressed in relative terms (% baseline). Next, to evaluate the impact of physiologic changes in μa and μ's, we compared peak BFI and BFI slope when μa and μ's were held constant throughout the reactive hyperemia protocol versus integrated from a 3s-rolling average. Regardless of approach, group means for peak BFI and BFI slope did not differ. Group means for peak BFI and BFI slope were also similar following ad absurdum analyses, where we simulated supraphysiologic changes in μa/μ's. In both cases, however, we identified individual cases where peak BFI and BFI slope were indeed affected, with this result being driven by relative changes in μa over μ's. Overall, these results provide support for past reports in which μa/μ's were held constant but also advocate for real-time incorporation of μa and μ's moving forward.
Machine learning estimation of tissue optical properties
