• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.817-824
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• 2007

Tractography using Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DT-MRI) is a method to determine the architecture of axonal fibers in the central nervous system by computing the direction of the principal eigenvector in the white matter of the brain. However, the fiber tracking methods suffer from the noise included in the diffusion tensor images that affects the determination of the principal eigenvector. As the fiber tracking progresses, the accumulated error creates a large deviation between the calculated fiber and the real fiber. This problem of the DT-MRI tractography is known mathematically as the ill-posed problem which means that tractography is very sensitive to perturbations by noise. To reduce the noise in DT-MRI measurements, a tensor-valued median filter which is reported to be denoising and structure-preserving in fiber tracking, is applied in the tractography. In this paper, we proposed the modified gradient descent method which converges fast and accurately to the optimal tensor-valued median filter by changing the step size. In addition, the performance of the modified gradient descent method is compared with others. We used the synthetic image which consists of 45 degree principal eigenvectors and the corticospinal tract. For the synthetic image, the proposed method achieved 4.66%, 16.66% and 15.08% less error than the conventional gradient descent method for error measures AE, AAE, AFA respectively. For the corticospinal tract, at iteration number ten the proposed method achieved 3.78%, 25.71 % and 11.54% less error than the conventional gradient descent method for error measures AE, AAE, AFA respectively.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2003

The purpose of paper is to implement a PC-based software for 3D visualization of brain fiber tractography and high-resolution anatomical data 서론： DTI (Diffusion tensor imaging) is a very useful noninvasive MRI technique for providing the direction and connectivity information of brain fiber tracts. Especially in patients with glioma, fiber tracts on the lesion side in the brain had varying degrees of displacement or disruption as a result of the tumor. Tract disruption resulted from direct tumor involvement, compression on the tract, and vasogenic edema surrounding the tumor. To combine information on fiber tracts surrounding turner with a high-resolution anatomical 3D image may be clinically useful for surgical planning. Therefore we implemented a software for visualizing both brain fiber tractography and anatomical data.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.83-83
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• 2003

Purpose： The purpose of paper is to implement a PC-based software for 3D visualization of brain fiber tractography and high-resolution anatomical data introduction： DTI (Diffusion tensor imaging) is a very useful noninvasive MRI technique for providing the direction and connectivity information of brain fiber tracts. Especially in patients with glioma, fiber tracts on the lesion side in the brain had varying degrees of displacement or disruption as a result of the tumor. Tract disruption resulted from direct tumor involvement, compression on the tract, and vasogenic edema surrounding the tumor. To combine information on fiber tracts surrounding tumor with a high-resolution anatomical 3D image may be clinically useful for surgical planning. Therefore we implemented a software for visualizing both brain fiber tractography and anatomical data.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2004.09a
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• pp.54-60
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.85-85
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• 2002

Purpose： To evaluate the white matter fiber connectivity of normal human using diffusion tensor MRI. Method： Normal young healthy volunteers (2 women and 1 man) and 3 brain tumor patients participated in this study. All studies were performed using a 1.5T Philips Gyroscan Intern system. Diffusion weighted imaging was performed using single-shot echo planar imaging, with navigator echo phase correction and SENSE. Diffusion weighting was performed along six independent axes, using diffusion weighting of b=800s/$\textrm{mm}^2$. 128matrix, 23cm FOV, 2.5mm slice thickness were used for Imaging parameters. Data were processed on a Window-2000 PC equipped with IDL and PRIDE (Philips Medical System). Corticospinal tract was traced from mid-pons level via posterior limb of internal capsule. Corpus callosum, cerebellar peduncles and frontal fibers were traced by fiber tractography.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.150-150
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• 2006

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.388-390
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• 2020

Objectives: The nigrostriatal tract (NST) connect from the substantia nigra pars compacta to the striatum. A few previous studies have reported on the NST in the Parkinson's disease using a proboblistic tractography method. However, no study has been conducted for identification of the NST using streamline DTT technique. In the current study, we used streamline DTI technique to investigate the reconstruction method and characteristics of the NST in normal subjects. Methods: Eleven healthy subjects were recruited in this study. The NST from the substantia nigra of the midbrain and the striatum of basal ganglia was reconstructed using DTI data. Fractional anisotropy, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values and fiber numbers of the NST were measured. Results: In all subjects, the NST between the substantia nigra of the midbrain and the striatum. Mean values for FA, ADC, and tract volume were 0.460, 0.818, and 154.3 in the right NST, and 0.485, 0.818, and 176.3 in the left NST respectively. Conclusions: we reconstructed the NRT from the substantia nigra of the midbrain and the striatum of the basal ganglia using streamline tractography method. We believe that the findings and the proposed streamline reconstruction method of this study would be useful in future researches on the NST of the human brain.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.2-8
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• 2005

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to implement a software to visualize tumor and its surrounding fiber tracts simultaneously using diffusion tensor imaging and examine the feasibility of our software for investigating the influence of tumor on its surrounding fiber connectivity. Material and Methods : MR examination including T1-weigted and diffusion tensor images of a patient with brain tumor was performed on a 3.0 T MRI unit. We used the skull-striped brain and segmented tumor images for volume/surface rendering and anatomical information from contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. Diffusion tensor images for the white matter fiber-tractography were acquired using a SE-EPI with a diffusion scheme of 25 directions. Fiber-tractography was performed using the streamline and tensorline methods. To correct a spatial mismatch between T1-weighted and diffusion tensor images, they were coregistered using a SPM. Our software was implemented under window-based PC system. Results : We successfully implemented the integrated visualization of the fiber tracts with tube-like surfaces, cortical surface and the tumor with volume/surface renderings in a patient with brain tumor. Conclusion : Our result showed the feasibility of the integrated visualization of brain tumor and its surrounding fiber tracts. In addition, our implementation for integrated visualization can be utilized to navigate the brain for the quantitative analysis of fractional anisotropy to assess changes in the white matter tract integrity of edematic and peri-edematic regions in a number of tumor patients.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.504-512
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• 2020

Objective : An important factor during pituitary adenoma surgery is to preserve pituitary stalk (PS) as this plays a role in reduction of the risk of postoperative diabetes insipidus. The hypothalamic-hypophyseal tract (HHT) projects through the PS to the posterior pituitary gland. To reconstruct white matter fiber pathways, methods like diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography have been widely used. In this report we attempted to predict the position of PS using DTI tractography and to assess its intraoperative correlation during surgery of pituitary adenomas. Methods : DTI tractography was used to tract the HHT in nine patients before craniotomy for pituitary adenomas. The DTI location of the HHT was compared with the PS position identified at the time of surgery. DTI fiber tracking was carried out in nine patients prior to the planned craniotomy for pituitary adenomas. In one patient, the PS could not be identified during the surgery. In the other eight patients, a comparison was made between the location of the HHT identified by DTI and the position of the PS visualized at the time of surgery. Results : The position of the HHT identified by DTI showed consistency with the intraoperative position of the PS in seven patients (88.9% concordance). Conclusion : This study shows that DTI can identify the position of the HHT and thus the position of the PS with a high degree of reliability.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2007.10a
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• pp.63-64
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• 2007