Normative handheld near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) optical density in healthy children: control-group dataset

Anonymised raw regional and inter-hemispheric optical density (OD) measurements from 52 healthy children aged 12–210 months, acquired with a handheld single-wavelength (808 nm) near-infrared spectroscopy device (Infrascanner Model 2000, InfraScan Inc.) at eight bilateral scalp sites (frontal, temporal, parietal, occipital). All participants had an age-appropriate paediatric Glasgow Coma Scale score of 15 and no history of head trauma or neurological disease. The dataset provides the healthy-cohort baseline used to characterise normal regional OD and inter-hemispheric symmetry, and to evaluate the manufacturer-established ΔOD > 0.20 hematoma-screening threshold against the range of normal physiological variation. Files: - nirs_control_group_data.csv — raw data, one row per participant (n = 52); canonical machine-readable export. - NIRS_control_group_dataset_v2.xlsx — README, variable dictionary, source data, and descriptive statistics computed live from the source data. - nirs_analysis.py — custom Python analysis script reproducing every value reported in the article; writes results.json. There are no missing values. Ethics: approved by the Independent Bioethics Committee for Scientific Research at the Medical University of Gdańsk (approval No. NKBBN/722/2021); written informed consent was obtained from a parent or legal guardian of every participant. The dataset is anonymised and contains no individually identifiable personal information.