Brian R White
VerifiedUniversity of Pennsylvania · Rehabilitation Medicine
Active 1973–2025
About
Brian R White, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Cardiology) at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at CHOP. He specializes in pediatric cardiology, with expertise in both general outpatient cardiology and echocardiography, treating children with congenital and acquired heart diseases. His research laboratory focuses on developing novel optical neuroimaging techniques to better understand pediatric neurodevelopment and its disruption by diseases such as congenital heart disease, prematurity, and stroke. His work involves using widefield optical imaging in mice and diffuse optical tomography in large animals and humans to probe brain function, with an emphasis on resting-state methods like functional connectivity to assess brain integrity at the bedside. He also collaborates with researchers at CHOP and Penn on algorithm development and statistical methods to ensure rigor and reproducibility in neuroimaging research.
Research topics
- Medicine
- Radiology
- Pathology
- Anesthesia
Selected publications
2025-01-01
articleFrequency-domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (FD-DOS) assesses tissue optical properties non-invasively. We propose a Monte Carlo-based Lookup Table method, improving accuracy at short source-detector separations while significantly reducing computational cost for small animal cerebral monitoring.
Anesthetic effects on functional connectivity fingerprinting in mice
2025-03-19
article2025-03-19
articleSenior authorAddressing Missing Data With Multiple Imputation in Optical Neuroimaging
2025-01-01
articleSenior authorIn optical neuroimaging, the field-of-view invariably differs across subjects. Here, we evaluate the use of techniques to address missingness, including multiple imputation, with an emphasis on their effects on Type I and Type II error.
Hybrid Diffuse Optics for Monitoring Cerebral Physiology After Traumatic Brain Injury
2025-01-01
articleDiffuse optics provides a non-invasive approach for neuromonitoring after traumatic brain injury. Using a swine model, we demonstrate its utility in detecting cerebral physiological changes, including cerebral water content, blood flow and oxygen metabolism. Full-text article not available; see video presentation
Circulation · 2025-11-03
articleIntroduction: Children with single-ventricle heart disease undergo a series of palliative surgeries that result in passive pulmonary blood flow. To maintain pulmonary blood flow, there is a necessary rise in superior vena cava (SVC) pressure, which exposes patients to a variety of complications. Longitudinal monitoring of SVC pressure may improve triage of high-risk patients, but it is hindered by the invasiveness of the measurement ( e.g., cardiac catheterization). We have developed a non-invasive optical measure of cerebral critical closing pressure (CrCP) that is obtained with simple application of a fiberoptic sensor to the forehead (Fig. (A)). CrCP is the external pressure compressing the cerebral arterioles, which depends on intracranial pressure (ICP), and thus SVC pressure through back-propagation. Indeed, increased ICP is thought to be the cause of the postoperative irritability commonly seen in these patients immediately after the surgery to establish their superior cavopulmonary connection (SCPC). Hypothesis: Optically measured CrCP correlates with invasive SVC pressure measurements and post-SCPC pain scores in single-ventricle patients. Methods: We performed two prospective studies in children with single-ventricle heart defects. In one study, we measured CrCP in patients with SCPC physiology during cardiac catheterization procedures wherein SVC pressure was invasively measured for clinical care. In the second study, we measured CrCP before and after the SCPC operation. Specifically, a single preoperative measurement was performed within 24 hours of surgery, and episodic postoperative measurements, targeted to occur once daily, were performed during the first week after surgery. We averaged the postoperative measurements and the clinical postoperative FLACC pain scores to create single postoperative values for each patient. Results: CrCP was positively correlated with invasive SVC pressure measurements in 15 patients (R=0.69, p=0.004; Fig. (B)). In the other study, we measured a significant preoperative to postoperative increase in CrCP across 16 patients (p<0.001; Fig. (C)), which demonstrates the sensitivity of CrCP to the acute increase in SVC pressure. The degree of increase was also correlated with the mean FLACC Pain Score across the postoperative measurement period (R=0.55, p=0.03; Fig. (D)). Conclusion: CrCP is a promising non-invasive proxy of SVC pressure in patients with SCPC that can be deployed to the bedside and clinic.
2025-12-17
article2025-01-01
articleSenior authorWe propose and evaluate a novel machine learning segmentation approach for widefield optical imaging, utilizing multi-wavelength and temporal data, surpassing traditional single baseline image segmentation methods.
Circulation · 2025-11-03
articleAbstract Body (2500): Introduction: Accurate quantification of cerebral oxygenation is critical for managing children with congenital heart defects (CHD) during pediatric critical care and procedural operations. While Continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy (CW-NIRS) is a clinically used tool for cerebral oximetry monitoring, its quantitative accuracy, especially during hypoxemia, is limited. Advanced frequency domain diffuse optical spectroscopy (FD-DOS) offers improved quantitative accuracy by directly measuring tissue scattering properties. While differences between FD-DOS and CW-NIRS have been observed, a direct clinical comparison against gold standard measurements in the clinical setting has been lacking. Methods: This prospective observational study enrolled children diagnosed with cyanotic CHD undergoing cardiac catheterization. Gold standard cerebral tissue oxygenation (StO2) was calculated from invasive superior vena cava (SVC) and descending aorta (DA) blood co-oximetry measurements with an invasive catheter, assuming a widely accepted tissue venous blood volume fraction of 0.75, i.e., . Cerebral tissue oxygenation was also measured during cardiac catheterization non-invasively with a CW-NIRS INVOS oximeter and a custom FD-DOS oximeter. The non-invasive measurements were performed in parallel with sensors placed on the left and right foreheads. Results: Data from 16 patients included gold standard measurements, among which useful FD-DOS data were available in 12 subjects, and CW-NIRS data in 8 patients. The FD-DOS measurements significantly correlated with the invasive gold standard (R = 0.807, p = 0.002), but CW-NIRS measurements were not (R = -0.099, p = 0.816) ( Fig. 1) . Although FD-DOS underestimated the invasive standard, possibly because of a fixed venous fraction derived from healthy patients. Children recruited in this study had Glenn physiology, where the higher central venous pressure (~12 mmHg) may lead to higher venous fraction. Despite the limited CW-NIRS samples, its monitoring accuracy is known to be limited during hypoxemia (DA range 71-97% and SVC range 52-76%). For 5 shared patients, FD-DOS (R = 0.88, p = 0.049) continued to outperform CW-NIRS (R = 0.118, p = 0.850) in correlation with invasive measurements. Conclusions: FDDOS measurements of cerebral tissue oxygenation demonstrated improved accuracy compared to commercially used CW-NIRS based technology.
2025-03-19
article
Recent grants
Optical Functional Neuroimaging of Acute and Chronic Hypoxia
NIH · $843k · 2020–2025
Frequent coauthors
- 58 shared
Michael A. Quail
Wellcome Sanger Institute
- 48 shared
Inna Cherevach
- 47 shared
Carol Churcher
- 47 shared
Daniel J. Licht
University of Pennsylvania
- 42 shared
Ian Goodhead
University of Salford
- 42 shared
Danielle Walker
- 41 shared
Karen Mungall
BC Cancer Agency
- 39 shared
Wesley B. Baker
Labs
Brian R White LaboratoryPI
Education
- 2012
MD, PHD, Physics and Medicine
Washington University in Saint Louis
- 2004
AB, Physics
Harvard University
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