David Boas
· Professor (BME, ECE); Director of Neurophotonics CenterVerifiedBoston University · Environmental Health
Active 1993–2026
About
David Boas, PhD, is a Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Boston University College of Engineering. He is also the Director of the Neurophotonics Center. His educational background includes a PhD in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Boas's research focuses on neurophotonics, functional near infrared spectroscopy, biomedical optics, oxygen delivery and consumption, neuro-vascular coupling, and physiological modeling. He has made significant contributions to the field of biomedical optics and neurophotonics, serving as the founding editor-in-chief of Neurophotonics and the founding president of SfNIRS. His work combines expertise from neuroscience, engineering, photonics, and computer science to better understand how the brain processes noise, among other topics. Dr. Boas has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Arthur G. B. Metcalf Chair, fellowships of OSA, SPIE, and AIMBE, and awards such as the Britton Chance Award for Biomedical Optics.
Research topics
- Computer Science
- Artificial Intelligence
- Psychology
- Physics
- Neuroscience
- Data science
- Optics
- Acoustics
- Mathematics
- Materials science
- Medicine
- Radiology
- Astronomy
- Cognitive science
Selected publications
A wearable, fiberless, SCOS device for cuffless blood pressure monitoring
2026-03-04
articleCapillary transit time heterogeneity comes into focus
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2026-02-17
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAlzheimer s & Dementia · 2025-08-01
articleOpen accessINTRODUCTION: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) are tauopathies with gray matter (GM) myelin changes that are challenging to assess with standard imaging. New methods are needed to quantify myelin integrity in autopsy brain tissues. METHODS: We used polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) to measure bulk tissue relative retardance and birefringence microscopy for high-resolution imaging of myelin degradation. Samples included five AD, five CTE, and four age-matched normal controls. RESULTS: When controlling for age and postmortem interval, no statistically significant differences in white matter retardance or GM myelin defect density were observed between groups. The age difference between controls (64 ± 4.7 years, mean ± SD) and disease groups (80.3 ± 7 years) emerged as an important confounding factor. Amyloid beta and tau staining showed weak correlations with myelin defects. DISCUSSION: Our label-free approach enables large-volume imaging of brain tissue, a valuable tool for studying myelin changes in neurodegenerative diseases. HIGHLIGHTS: Multi-modal assessment of myelin integrity using polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) and high-resolution birefringence microscopy. Age emerged as a critical confounding factor; no significant disease differences were found. Weak correlation between myelin defects and deposition of amyloid beta/tau was found in prefrontal gray matter. Label-free optical methods enable high-resolution, large-volume imaging of myelin.
Machine learning-based method to detect capillary stalling using optical coherence tomography
Biomedical Optics Express · 2025-03-24
articleOpen accessCapillary stalling has emerged as an important mechanistic and potential therapeutic target in mouse models of several neurological disorders. Time-series optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) has been used to rapidly detect capillary stalling over hundreds of capillaries in 3D and can be used to study this phenomenon in a research setting. However, existing methods for quantifying capillary stalls are labor-intensive, prone to errors, and may be limited by their reliance on 2D representations of inherently 3D data. To address these limitations, we developed a computational approach based on a support vector machine (SVM) trained on engineered features pertaining to OCTA time-series data. When evaluated with 4-fold cross-validation, the final classifier achieved a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) area under the curve (AUC) of .978 (baseline: 0.5) and a precision-recall (PR) AUC of .700 (baseline: 0.013). It also reduced the amount of time required to annotate from 1 hour to 22 minutes per dataset and detected an average of 8.1 stalling segments in each dataset that were missed by expert annotations, which amounted to 26% of all stalling segments. To demonstrate the utility of our tool, we measured the morphological properties of capillaries and found that stalling segments are significantly smaller in diameter, more tortuous, and longer than non-stalling segments. These findings highlight the algorithm's potential to uncover morphological patterns associated with stalling and facilitate comparative studies across experimental conditions. To support further research, the tool is freely available as open-source software for use by the scientific community.
Do Children's Brains Function Differently During Book Reading and Screen Time? A fNIRS Study
Developmental Science · 2025-01-30 · 5 citations
articleOpen accessPrevious research suggests that book reading and screen time have contrasting effects on language and brain development. However, few studies have explicitly investigated whether children's brains function differently during these two activities. The present study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure brain response in 28 typically developing preschool-aged children (36-72 months old) during two conditions-a book reading condition, in which children listened to a story read by a live experimenter while viewing words and pictures in a book, and a screen time condition, in which children listened to a story that was played via an audio recording while viewing words and pictures on a screen. Analyses revealed significant activation in the right temporal parietal junction (TPJ) during the book reading condition only. Across regions of interest (ROIs), including the inferior and middle frontal gyrus (IMFG), the superior and middle temporal gyrus (SMTG), and the TPJ, brain response during the book reading condition was greater in right-lateralized ROIs than left-lateralized ROIs, while brain response during the screen time condition was similar across left and right ROIs. Findings suggest that the lateralization of preschool-aged children's brain function within these ROIs differs during book reading and screen time, which provides a possible neurobiological explanation for why book reading and screen time impact language development in such different ways. Findings provide important insights into how children's brains function during different types of activities (dyadic vs. solitary) and when using different types of media (print vs. digital).
Nature Human Behaviour · 2025-09-02 · 7 citations
articleSenior authorBiomedical Optics Express · 2025-05-29 · 5 citations
articleOpen accessThis work introduces high-speed (390 Hz) speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) to enable simultaneous measurements of multi-anatomic site microvascular blood volume and flow oscillations. Simultaneous blood flow and volume waveforms were extracted at two wavelengths on the wrist and finger, in reflectance and transmission mode, respectively. Blood volume changes (also known as photoplethysmography, or PPG) were determined based on intensity oscillations. Blood flow information was determined based on dynamic light scattering information encoded in the 2D spatial speckle pattern after removal of stochastic and instrument noise. We extracted a wide array of temporal, shape-based, and frequency-domain features from each high-resolution waveform, as well as features that characterize the temporal relationships between these features. These features and their inter-relationships are determined by the dynamic biomechanical properties of peripheral microvasculature, including vascular compliance and resistance, which are key determinants of dynamic changes in systemic blood pressure (BP). In comparison to PPG alone, SCOS demonstrated a notable 31% improvement (p = 3.45 * 10 −7 ) in systolic BP estimation when integrated into subject-specific machine-learning models. The resulting errors were remarkably low (systolic BP: 0.06+/- 2.88 mmHg, diastolic BP: 0.09 +/-2.14 mmHg) across a wide range of BP variations (range SBP: 89–284 mmHg). This improvement was sustained several weeks later within a re-measured cohort, indicating highly robust BP predictions. Looking ahead, high-speed SCOS holds the potential to substantially enhance the non-invasive characterization of the cardiovascular system, including continuous and non-invasive BP measurements, which are a long-sought-after goal of the biomedical community.
Neurophotonics · 2025-08-13 · 3 citations
articleOpen accessLipofuscin, a cellular pigment that accumulates with age, serves as a significant marker of aging. Recently, studies have linked lipofuscin with neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Using an integrated serial sectioning optical coherence tomography (OCT) and two-photon microscopy (2PM) systems, we developed a method to examine the accumulation and distribution of lipofuscin in postmortem human brain samples. Lipofuscin was imaged with 2PM autofluorescence and quantitatively analyzed in specific structures revealed by OCT images. We involved samples from 15 people aged 60 to 90 years, including those with late-stage AD, chronic traumatized encephalopathy (CTE), and controls (NC). We developed a segmentation method for lipofuscin aggregates based on high-pass filtering and adaptive thresholding, achieving a Dice score of 61% using the integrated system at lower resolution when validated against high-resolution fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and phasor analysis. Quantitative metrics such as lipofuscin number density, area fraction, and radius were calculated, revealing distinct spatial distribution patterns across different brain regions and neurological conditions. AD cases exhibited a higher accumulation of lipofuscin in the gray matter sulcus regions compared with the controls, represented by the three metrics of density, area fraction, and size. The difference is particularly significant in number density. Furthermore, we discovered that lipofuscin forms layer structures in the cortical gray matter, which may be related to cell distribution in these regions. Further investigation of these areas revealed significant differences in CTE cases, especially in the infragranulary layer sulcus, compared with controls. In contrast to AD cases, the accumulation difference is significant in the sulcus of both the supergranular and infragranular layers compared with controls. These findings provide valuable information on the pathological role of lipofuscin in neurodegeneration.
Communications Biology · 2025-11-11
articleOpen accessRecently, speckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) enabled non-invasive, high signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) human cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements, relevant for both neuroscience and clinical monitoring of diseases with CBF dysregulation. Single-channel SCOS measurements limit the information obtained to only one location on the head. In this work, we develop a multi-channel SCOS system to map spatial heterogeneity in CBF changes during human brain activation. Using a galvanometer, we temporally multiplex a free-space laser to 7 source fibers positioned at different locations on the head. Diffuse light collected from the tissue is captured by fiber bundles projecting to 17 complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) cameras, resulting in 50 source-detector channels measuring optical density (OD) and relative CBF changes covering an area of 7.6 cm by 6.6 cm on the head. We validate the spatial specificity and stability of the system using a liquid flow phantom. We then measure brain activity during a word-color Stroop task in 15 subjects and obtain brain activation maps. The average signal changes in the channel showing the largest activation is $$1.7\times {10}^{-2}$$ in ΔOD and 6.6% in CBF. We present a high-density, multi-channel speckle contrast optical spectroscopy system for mapping cerebral blood flow in humans, enabling noninvasive brain function measurements
2025-03-20 · 1 citations
articleSpeckle contrast optical spectroscopy (SCOS) allows for simultaneous monitoring of blood flow (BFi) and volume (PPG) changes within each cardiac pulse. SCOS measurements were collected from 30 subjects and the BFi and PPG pulse waveforms (PWFs) were extracted. We found that machine learning models trained on both BFi and PPG features predicted blood pressure (BP) with lower errors compared to models trained only with PPG features. In addition, 20 subjects were remeasured several weeks later. The models were trained on an individual subject’s first measurement and used to predict BP for the second measurement. With the addition of BFi information, BP estimation was significantly improved.
Recent grants
NIH · $5.3M · 2020–2025
NIH · $581k · 2003
NIH · $2.1M · 2017
NIH · $1.2M · 2020–2025
NIH · $1.2M · 2012
Frequent coauthors
- 623 shared
Sava Sakadžić
- 542 shared
Anna Devor
Boston University
- 416 shared
Maria Angela Franceschini
Semmelweis University
- 350 shared
Louis Gagnon
Université Laval
- 349 shared
Stefan A. Carp
Massachusetts General Hospital
- 336 shared
Meryem A. Yücel
Boston University
- 307 shared
Juliette Selb
- 291 shared
Mohammad A. Yaseen
University of Mosul
Labs
Education
- 1992
Ph.D., Electrical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
- 1988
M.S., Electrical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
- 1986
B.S., Electrical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Awards & honors
- 2022 Arthur G. B. Metcalf Chair
- 2018 Elected Fellow of OSA
- 2017 Elected Fellow of SPIE and AIMBE
- 2016 Britton Chance Award for Biomedical Optics
- 2013 Neurophotonics, Founding Editor-in-Chief
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