Art of Neuroimaging

Check out more images on my neuroimaging site.

Video Introduction to the Cingulum

I posted this on my neuroimaging blog and thought I should post it here too. This is a video I put together about the cingulum, a prominent white matter fiber track in the brain that is involved in emotion, attention, memory, among many other functions. All images except one from Gray’s Anatomy (the anatomy book, not the T.V. show) were created by me using some fairly advanced imaging techniques. If you are interested about some of the techniques, read my neuroimaging blog.

New Neuroimaging Website

I’ve started an online structural neuroimaging guide for users of Mac OS X. The site can be found here. I am just beginning with it so there is not much information there yet but I hope to slowly expand it and make it a good resource for things related to neuroimaging, particularly structural MRI (including diffusion weighted images). My primary interests are with neuroimaging, neuroanatomy, and neuropsychology; I spend the bulk of my research time doing one of my favorite things – dealing with methods of neuroimaging analysis. While my role is not as technical as some of our collaborators, I enjoy the process of processing MRIs. In the process I have learned a great deal about imaging and wanted to put together a series of guides that will allow others, especially students and novices, to conduct their own analyses. There is a lot of very useful information out there but it is not consolidated into any one locale. One thing I plan on doing is consolidating much of the information into one place and making it easy to follow.

New CT Scanner from Philips

Philips recently developed a new 64 channel CT scanner that can provide high-resolution 3-D images of the body. The images it can produce are simply fabulous. Philips states that it can have sub-milimeter isotropic resolution and scan the complete human body in less than one minute with 80% less radiation exposure than traditional CT scanners. Numerous articles and pictures are starting to show up on the web. It appears that the main uses of it, at least initially, are focused on the cardiovascular system. I wonder how beneficial or useful it would be for neuroimaging? I’m not an imaging specialist but the speed and resolution of this system could lead to great improvements in neuroimaging. Even with a limited field of view, it seems like it could be beneficial to look at specific regions of the brain. There is no indication if volumetric and quantitative analyses could be performed on the images. Then again, the technology is quite new. Only one hospital in the world is actually using one of these machines.

The reported price of the machine is $2 million, which is quite reasonable. MRI machines can run upwards of $10 million. This is a technology well worth watching as it develops. We are about to enter a golden age of anatomical imaging.

Here are a few links to stories and images:

Image Gallery

Gizmodo article

Technical Specs

BBC article

CT image

CT image of face

Images by Philips.

Toshiba also recently unveiled a similar machine: Link here.