The Versatility of (f)NIRS: From the Laboratory to the Living World

First-Person Consciousness — Brain Bee Style

I used to believe science lived only inside silent laboratories filled with white light, wires, and stationary chairs.
But the first time I saw a portable fNIRS system running in a real environment, something shifted inside me:

Science is becoming alive.
And the brain is finally being measured where it truly exists:
inside a moving body.

1. When we leave the lab, the brain reveals what it always hid

The study I explored this week shows how (f)NIRS has crossed the laboratory threshold and entered the real world:

• walking,
  
  

• climbing,
  
  

• diving,
  
  

• playing instruments,
  
  

• running,
  
  

• social interaction,
  
  

• daily life.
  
  

And here is the surprising part:

the brain behaves differently when it is alive,
not sitting still in a chair.

Everything we call the Damasian Mind — the interplay between interoception and proprioception — appears fully only when the body is breathing, anticipating, moving, improvising.

And (f)NIRS captured exactly that.

2. A brain in motion: a window into living Zones 1, 2, and 3

With devices like Brite, TetraBrite, and PortaLite, we now see what was once only a theoretical idea:

• Zone 1 emerges when actions flow naturally.
  
  

• Zone 2 appears when the body enters respiratory coherence and perception expands.
  
  

• Zone 3 erupts when there is threat, overload, or physiological disorganization.
  
  

fNIRS turns bodily states into signals, and signals into processes we can measure.

What used to be conceptual body philosophy
now becomes quantifiable neurophysiology.

3. The versatility of fNIRS reveals “other bodies” and “other worlds”

This was the part that struck me most deeply:
the technology has evolved so much that today we can measure brain and muscle activity in:

• humans,
  
  

• wild animals,
  
  

• marine mammals,
  
  

• babies,
  
  

• older adults,
  
  

• athletes,
  
  

• divers,
  
  

• even primates in natural environments.
  
  

The same device that reads my prefrontal cortex while I think
can also measure muscle oxygenation in an athlete,
or a seal diving under pressure,
or a baboon responding to vocalizations.

fNIRS has become a cross-species physiological language.

And now we see how each body creates its own Tensional Selves, its own Zones of attention, its own Damasian Mind.

4. This technology does not measure the brain — it measures the body’s history in that moment

fNIRS is sensitive to:

• blood flow,
  
  

• oxygenation,
  
  

• motor effort,
  
  

• cognitive load,
  
  

• anticipation (Apus),
  
  

• emotion,
  
  

• fatigue,
  
  

• synchronization between individuals (QSH),
  
  

• respiration,
  
  

• fruição-like states.
  
  

In other words:

it measures the body trying to be conscious.

When my muscles work, fNIRS sees it.
When my prefrontal cortex overloads, it sees it.
When my breathing destabilizes, it sees it.
When I enter Zone 2, it sees it.
When I synchronize with others, it sees it.

It is as if fNIRS exposes the biological architecture of attention, effort, and belonging.

5. Customization: when fNIRS adapts to the body instead of forcing the body to adapt

The study highlights something revolutionary:

New fNIRS systems can be customized for:

• head shapes and sizes,
  
  

• specific muscles,
  
  

• underwater use,
  
  

• helmets and sports gear,
  
  

• clinical environments,
  
  

• movement-heavy activities,
  
  

• extreme conditions.
  
  

For the first time, technology doesn’t demand a still body.
Technology follows the living body.

This is naturalistic neuroscience at its finest.

6. These advances confirm our core idea: the mind is movement

fNIRS provided solid evidence for something you have always defended:

• the mind is not static
  
  

• thought is not sedentary
  
  

• consciousness emerges from action
  
  

And now this is measurable:

• Apus appears in oxygenation patterns before movement.
  
  

• Zone 2 appears as a physiological plateau of stability.
  
  

• Zone 3 appears as respiratory and muscular collapse.
  
  

• QSH emerges when bodies synchronize vascular and respiratory rhythms.
  
  

What was once conceptual intuition
is now hemodynamic signal.

7. First-person conclusion — Science has finally found the living body

After seeing all this, I realized something fundamental:

the brain does not exist alone.
It is inseparable from movement, environment, and body.

And this new generation of fNIRS does not measure “brain activation.”
It measures life happening,
moment by moment,
zone by zone,
state by state.

Now I see clearly:

- consciousness is movement
- the body is the original stage of cognition
- environment is part of the brain
✔ and fNIRS is the first technology to treat all of this as one living system

Neuroscience has left the laboratory.
For the first time,
the brain is being measured where it always lived — inside life itself.

This blog draws on recent (2020–2024) research in naturalistic neuroimaging, portable fNIRS systems, muscle–brain hemodynamics, animal studies, underwater physiology, task-based oxygenation, human–human synchrony (QSH), autonomy in movement, embodied cognition, and environmental neurophysiology.

These studies show that:

• fNIRS is now one of the most versatile tools for measuring brain and muscle activity in real-world environments;
  
  

• modern hardware supports group studies, athletic performance, clinical mobility, underwater research, field studies, and animal cognition;
  
  

• hemodynamic signals reveal states equivalent to Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3;
  
  

• synchrony between individuals produces physiological patterns consistent with Human Quorum Sensing (QSH);
  
  

• anticipatory bodily states (aligned with Apus) appear before motor actions;
  
  

• consciousness depends on embodied states that fNIRS can capture in real time.