{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Handheld hyperspectral imaging as a tool for the post-mortem interval estimation of human skeletal remains.
{Author}: Schmidt VM;Zelger P;Wöss C;Fodor M;Hautz T;Schneeberger S;Huck CW;Arora R;Brunner A;Zelger B;Schirmer M;Pallua JD;
{Journal}: Heliyon
{Volume}: 10
{Issue}: 4
{Year}: 2024 Feb 29
{Factor}: 3.776
{DOI}: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e25844
{Abstract}: In forensic medicine, estimating human skeletal remains' post-mortem interval (PMI) can be challenging. Following death, bones undergo a series of chemical and physical transformations due to their interactions with the surrounding environment. Post-mortem changes have been assessed using various methods, but estimating the PMI of skeletal remains could still be improved. We propose a new methodology with handheld hyperspectral imaging (HSI) system based on the first results from 104 human skeletal remains with PMIs ranging between 1 day and 2000 years. To differentiate between forensic and archaeological bone material, the Convolutional Neural Network analyzed 65.000 distinct diagnostic spectra: the classification accuracy was 0.58, 0.62, 0.73, 0.81, and 0.98 for PMIs of 0 week-2 weeks, 2 weeks-6 months, 6 months-1 year, 1 year-10 years, and >100 years, respectively. In conclusion, HSI can be used in forensic medicine to distinguish bone materials >100 years old from those <10 years old with an accuracy of 98%. The model has adequate predictive performance, and handheld HSI could serve as a novel approach to objectively and accurately determine the PMI of human skeletal remains.