Projects
Medical Imaging and Radiology Informatics (MIRI)
Medical Imaging Information System (MIIS)
Parallel Computing for Medical Imaging (PCMI)
Modeling of Biotransport in
Biological Systems (MBBS)
Optical Imaging Tomography and Applications (OITA)
Image Stereology and Clinic Applications (ISCA)
Stereotactic Atlas for the Anatomic Topology (SAAT)
Coupled Diffusions for Image Enhencement (DDIE)
Grid-based Medical Imaging System (GMIS)
Cyberinfrastructure for Medical Imaging Informatics (CMII)
Medical Image Informatics Education (MIIE)
Nanomedicine and nanobiomedical imaging (NMNI)
Grant Opportunities
Copyright © 2005-2008 Laboratory of Medical Imaging High Performance Computing & Informatics; www.uiowa.edu/mihpclab/ |
Despite numerous studies devoted to the thalamus, its function as a whole, and specially the functional role of the individual thalamus nuclei, outside those regions that are involved in the processing of the sensory information, still remains the speculation. The latter have been the primary focus of thalamic investigations, whereas other regions have received little attention especially in primates. Complexity of the thalamic structure that does not lend itself to easy experimentation, lack of agreement among investigators on thalamic parcelations and nomenclature, unavailability of atlas, especially in primates, that provide not only maps of clear outlines but cytoarchitecture and current experimental data used as rationales for the latter, are just some of the factors that have impeded the studies on the thalamus. We designed a computer-aided stereotactic atlas system, an interactive software tool for investigators interested in pursuing studies on the thalamic structure and functions in nonhuman primates. The software system allows investigators to interactively and three-dimensionally outline regions of thalamic nuclei based on the cytoarchitecture and available data on the distribution of sub-cortical afference in the money thalamus. The software has a number of unique and useful features, such as the linkage of the high resolution cytoarchitecture plates to the maps of nuclear outlines, capabilities for exploration of nuclear configurations with different sections planes, and easy switching between the planes when choosing the target coordinates for surgery or analyzing experimental materials. It provides new insights into the further topographic relationships of the thalamic nuclei being investigated. This paper focuses on the system architecture, software design, Java programming, and the implementation of the software.