Basic steps for building and using a functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS) System

Brain-computer interface (BCI) has been in the center of interest for many researchers for the past few decades, resulting in various methods to obtain signals from the brain and algorithms to process the signal. Among those brain signal obtaining methods under research, functional near infra-red spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a method with great potential of acquiring accurate data of neural activities. This paper provides the fundamentals for building an fNIRS system and how to process the acquired data to obtain a signal relevant of neural activity. Customization for particular applications is possible enabling novice brain researchers to join the research field and further improve BCI.