Narrow Results

After introduction to medical imaging, virtual reality (VR), and VR surgical simulation, the paper overviews our long-term efforts in human body modeling and development of VR-based applications for brain intervention. It describes construction, features, and applications of anatomical, functional, and vascular brain atlases. It also presents VR-based applications developed for stereotactic and functional neurosurgery (NeuroPlanner, NeuroBase, and BrainBench), interventional neuroradiology (NeuroCath and tele-NeuroCath), and tumor stereotaxis (VIVIAN). Finally, a vision of the future surgery (the DOTELL environment) is presented.

Looking into the Brain.

The objective of our research is to create a system computing brain deformations. We have in view both clinical and training applications, such as "brain shift" calculation, prognosis and diagnosis of development of brain diseases as well as surgical simulators for planning and education. In this paper, we specifically address issues related to creating geometrically and mechanically precise representations of the brain. The method comprises of the following steps: (1) development of a 3D anatomical brain atlas, (2) construction of a finite element mesh of the atlas, (3) creation of a mathematical model, and (4) development of an efficient computational model. We discuss two types of approaches to model deformation behavior of the brain: single-phase brain tissue model, suitable for analysis of relatively short events such as surgical actions; and bi-phasic brain tissue model, well suited for calculations leading to prognosis of the development of diseases. As an illustration of the presented concepts we provide examples of 3D meshing, calculation of reaction force acting on a surgical tool using a single-phase mathematical model, and calculations of the development of hydrocephalus and the effects of tumor growth using the bi-phasic modeling approach.