Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/08/2010
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Improved neonatal care has led to a marked decrease in mortality in premature neonates (between 23 and 32 weeks of gestation), yet intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is a major precursor of long-term neurologic morbidity in this patient population. Early detection and treatment of IVH could significantly improve long-term neurologic outcomes. Our laboratory has developed and tested a non-invasive and highly sensitive imaging method for detecting small amounts of active bleeding that has application either as a routine monitoring method in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit applications, or as a research tool for studying the sequence of events that occur around a bleeding event. I will detail the methods used and modeling strategies used to obtain locations and quantities of blood.
Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT) enables direct detection of neural activity because it is sensitive to membrane conductivity, a parameter that can only assume positive values and therefore is not subject to temporal or orientation related cancellation. I will show results of bidomain modeling studies showing that MREIT has promise as a direct neural imaging method. I will also discuss the factors affecting signal to noise ratio and the technical issues that need to be addressed in making this method an effective tool.