Department of Radiology - Medical Physics

Medical Imaging Cloud

Automated Stroke Assessment

Rapid and fully automatic, user-independent analysis of diffusion- and perfusion-weighted MRI data is desirable and may support treatment decisions in acute ischemic stroke. However, absolute quantification of of rCBV and rCBF are difficult and automatic evaluation strategies are needed. Aim of this project is to develop algorithms  which hypoperfused brain tissue is automatically segmented by a cluster-wise comparison to get a robust mismatch score.

Tractography and Language

Several major association fiber tracts are known to be part of the language processing system. There is evidence that high angular diffusion-based MRI is able to separate these fascicles in a constant way. In this project, we wanted to proof this thesis using global tractography and to test for possible lateralization.

• K. Egger , S. Yang , M. Reisert , C. Kaller , I. Mader , L. Beume , C. Weiller , H. Urbach
  “Tractography of Association Fibers Associated with Language Processing”
  Clinical Neuroradiology October 2015, Volume 25, Supplement 2, pp 231-236

Planning performance and Tractography

Complex cognitive abilities such as planning are known to critically rely on activity of bilateral mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (mid-dlPFC). However, the functional relevance of the structural connectivity between left and right mid-dlPFC is yet unknown. Here, we applied global tractography to derive streamline counts as estimates of the structural connectivity between mid-dlPFC homologs and related it to planning performance in the Tower of London task across early to midadulthood, assuming a moderating effect of age.

• Christoph P Kaller, Marco Reisert, Michael Katzev, Roza Umarova, Irina Mader, Jürgen Hennig, Cornelius Weiller, Lena Köstering
  “Predicting Planning Performance from Structural Connectivity Between Left and Right Mid-Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex: Moderating Effects of Age During Postadolescence and Midadulthood”
  Cereb. Cortex (2015) 25 (4): 869-883. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bht276