Conference 'Segmentation of thalamic nuclei from 3T MRI with applications'

Manojkumar Saranathan (University of Arizona, Tucson, USA) has been invited by Thomas Tourdias (Neurocentre Magendie) to give a TRAIL conference on Friday, June 21^st 2019 at 02:30 p.m. in the conference room of the Neurocentre Magendie (Carreire campus).

Segmentation of thalamic nuclei from 3T MRI with applications

Thalamic nuclei are increasingly implicated in a number of pathology including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alcohol use disorder, and potentially Alzheimer's disease. The VIM nucleus is the main target for deep brain stimulation for treatment of essential tremor. However, thalamic nuclei largely invisible in conventional T1 and T2 weighted MRI. So indirect methods using atlas-based coordinates are used for targeting and whole volumes are used for looking at changes in thalamic volumes, reducing sensitivity to the disease process. We have been developing MRI pulse sequences and cutting edge image processing techniques for fast automated segmentation of thalamic nuclei. I will present these and illustrate some potential applications to neurosurgery and neuroscience.