• Journal of KIISE
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.54-60
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• 2016

Brain gene expression information is closely related to the structural and functional characteristics of the brain. Thus, extensive research has been carried out on the relationship between gene expression patterns and the brain's structural organization. In this study, Principal Component Analysis was used to extract features of gene expression patterns, and genes were automatically classified by spatial distribution. Voxels were then clustered with classified specific region expressed genes. Finally, we visualized the clustering results for mouse hippocampal region gene expression with the Allen Brain Atlas. This experiment allowed us to classify the region-specific gene expression of the mouse hippocampal region and provided visualization of clustering results and a brain atlas in an integrated manner. This study has the potential to allow neuroscientists to search for experimental groups of genes more quickly and design an effective test according to the new form of data. It is also expected that it will enable the discovery of a more specific sub-region beyond the current known anatomical regions of the brain.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.947-956
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• 2020

The human body becomes vulnerable to various diseases due to deterioration in structure and function as it ages. In particular, changes in brain structure weaken the immune system against diseases such as vascular and metabolic neuropsychiatric diseases. In this study, we used a magnetic resonance imaging technique that allows non-invasive observation of brain structures and measurement of how the volumes of the brain, gray matter, white matter, and subcortical regions changes with aging in women aged 65 to 85 years. As a result of our investigation, we observed a significant linear decrease in subcortical regions with age. These results suggest that the changes due to aging in the brain structure area are closely related to neuropsychiatric diseases in old age, and can provide information in understanding the vulnerability of the brain in old age.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.542-551
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• 2000

In this paper, a novel technique is presented for automatic brain region segmentation in single channel MR image data sets for 3D visualization and analysis. The method detects brain contours in 2D and 3D processing of four steps. The first and the second make a head mask and an initial brain mask by automatic thresholding using a curve fitting technique. The stage 3 reconstructs 3D volume of the initial brain mask by cubic interpolation and generates an intermediate brain mask using morphological operation and labeling of connected components. In the final step, the brain mask is refined by automatic thresholding using curve fitting. This algorithm is useful for fully automatic brain region segmentation of T1-weighted, T2-weighted, PD-weighted, SPGR MRI data sets without considering slice direction and covering a whole volume of a brain. In the experiments, the algorithm was applied to 20 sets of MR images and showed over 0.97 in comparison with manual drawing in similarity index.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.17-25
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• 2011

In this study, we examined the impact caused by chronic exposure to Mn by investigating the degree of brain activation based on the data of recognition activities using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). A questionnaire survey, blood tests, and fMRI tests were carried out with respect to two groups. Group 1 was an exposure group consisting of 15 male workers who are 34 years old or older, and who worked for longer than 10 years in a shipbuilding factory as a welder. Group 2 was a control group consisting of 15 workers in manufacturing industries with the same gender and age. The results showed that blood Mn concentration of Group 1($1.3\;{\mu}g/dl$) was significantly higher than that of Group 2($0.8\;{\mu}g/dl$)(p < 0.001), and Pallidal Index (PI) of Group 1 was also significantly higher than that of Group 2 (p < 0.001). PI value of the group whose blood Mn concentration was $0.93\;{\mu}g/dl$ or higher was significantly higher than that of the group whose blood Mn concentration was less than $0.93 \;{\mu}g/dl$ (p < 0.001). As for brain activity area within the control group, the right and the left areas of occipital cortex showed significant activity and the left area of middle temporal cortex, the right area of superior inferior frontal cortex and inferior parietal cortex showed significant activity. Unlike the control group, the exposure group showed significant activity on the right area of superior inferior temporal cortex, the left of insula area. In the comparison of brain activity areas between the two groups, the exposure group showed significantly higher activation than the control group in such areas as the right inferior temporal cortex, the left area of superior parietal cortex and occipital cortex, and cerebellum including middle temporal cortex. However, in nowhere the control group showed more activated area than the exposure group. As the final outcome, chronic exposure to Mn increased brain activity during implementation of arithmetic task. In an identical task, activation increased in superior inferior temporal cortex, and insula area. And it was discovered that brain activity increase in temporal area and occipital area was more pronounced in the exposure group than in the control group. This result suggests that chronic exposure to Mn in the work environment affects brain activation neuro-network.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.1-15
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• 2002

A noel automated brain region extraction method in single channel MR images for visualization and analysis of a human brain is presented. The method generates a volume of brain masks by automatic thresholding using a dual curve fitting technique and by 3D morphological operations. The dual curve fitting can reduce an error in clue fitting to the histogram of MR images. The 3D morphological operations, including erosion, labeling of connected-components, max-feature operation, and dilation, are applied to the cubic volume of masks reconstructed from the thresholded Drain masks. This method can automatically extract a brain region in any displayed type of sequences, including extreme slices, of SPGR, T1-, T2-, and PD-weighted MR image data sets which are not required to contain the entire brain. In the experiments, the algorithm was applied to 20 sets of MR images and showed over 0.97 of similarity index in comparison with manual drawing.

• Proceedings of the Korea Multimedia Society Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.262-265
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• 2000

영상에서의 경계선추출은 영상의 강도의 변화를 이용한 경계영역의 가시화 기법이므로 gray level 영상이 가지는 강도를 이용하여 에지를 찾을 수 있다. 뇌 영상에는 MRI 영상과 같이 해부학적인 정보가 큰 영상과, PET 영상같이 perfusion으로 분석해야 할 영상이 있는데 그 경계가 뚜렷한 MRI 영상과 달리 PET 뇌 영상은 영상의 특성상 경계영역의 구분이 모호한 실정이다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 영상의 특성에 따라 뇌 영상에서 영상 강도에 대해 등분할을 한 후 vectorgram에서 magnitude의 영역을 선택하여 영상을 분할 하였다. 그리고 PET 와 MRI영상과 현미경 영상에 대한 결과를 비교하였다. Vertcrgram은 에지정보를 가지는 영상에 대해 벡터요소를 그래프화 한 것으로 방향성에 대한 평가를 통해 영역 분할을 하였다. 이러한 PET 영상의 2차원 분할 방법은 3차원 PET 영상 분석에 응용될 수 있을 것이다.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.25 no.7A
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• pp.1006-1016
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• 2000

This study is to segment white matter, gray matter, and cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) on a brain MR image and to calculate the volume of each. First, after removing the background on a brain MR image, we segmented the whole region of a brain from a skull and a fat layer. Then, we calculated the partial volume of each component, which was present in scanning finite thickness, with the arithmetical analysis of gray value from the internal region of a brain showing the blurring effects on the basis of the MR image forming principle. Calculated partial volumes of white matter, gray matter and CSF were used to determine the threshold for the segmentation of each component on a brain MR image showing the blurring effects. Finally, the volumes of segmented white matter, gray matter, and CSF were calculated. The result of this study can be used as the objective diagnostic method to determine the degree of brain atrophy of patients who have neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and cerebral palsy.

• Proceedings of the Korea Multimedia Society Conference
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• 2001.11a
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• pp.159-164
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• 2001

본 연구에서 설계하고 구현한 뇌 MR영상 처리기에서는 뇌 MR 영상에서 진단에 필요한 정보들을 자동 추출한다. 의료영상 처리 시에는 수집된 의료영상의 특징을 분석하고 특징들을 분류해야 하며 이를 위해서는 효율적인 특징 추출 알고리즘들 필요하다. 뇌 MR 영상 처리기는 영상의 잡음제거나 영상 강화를 위한 전처리기, 영상의 특징을 추출하기 위한 영역분할기와 전역, 지역 특징 추출기로 구성된다. 뇌 MR 영상 특징 추출을 위한 효율적인 의료영상 처리기의 개발 내용을 기술한다.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.49-60
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• 2018

Trait anger is one of the psychological traits associated with experiences of anger. Individuals with high trait anger become angry easily at trivial events, and experience anger more frequently, intensely, and over a longer duration. This study aimed to investigate neural responses during experiences of anger, and identify the neural correlates of trait anger. Thirty five adults participated in the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) experiment. They were scanned while they recalled an anger-inducing memory that was supposed to evoke an experience of anger. During the angry recall compared to the emotionally neutral recall, our participants showed greater neural activation in the right superior temporal gyrus (BA38), left inferior frontal gyrus (BA45), right thalamus, right insula (BA13), bilateral cuneus (BA17), and right cerebellum anterior lobe. The correlation analysis revealed that trait anger scores were positively associated with right insula activity during the angry recall. Individuals with higher trait anger were more likely to show greater activity in the right insula in response to past experiences of anger, as previously implicated in various studies of emotional processing. This finding suggests that trait anger may be an important factor in modulating anger-related brain activity.

• Proceedings of the KSMRM Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.26-26
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• 2003

목적： 본 연구의 목적은 미각자극에 대한 인간 뇌의 활성화 영역을 측정하고 가시화하여 미각의 뇌 활성화 부위에 대한 기초자료를 마련하는데 있다. 대상 및 방법： 5명의 남자 대학생 (평균 24.8세)을 뇌기능 연구의 실험 대상자로 선정하였고, 대상자들은 미각에 이상이 없고 구강수술 경험이 없는 오른손잡이를 대상으로 3번에 걸쳐 EPI 혈액산 소농도의존(blood oxygen level dependent)법을 이용하여 미각자극에 의한 기능적 자기공명영상 실험을 수행하였다. 미각 자극을 위하여 5％의 saline을 사용하였으며 자체적으로 제작한 Stimulator를 사용하여 자극하였다. 자극은 3회의 휴식기간과 2회의 자극기간에 걸쳐 시행하였으며, 각 자극기간은 30초씩 5초 간격으로 이스 당 42개의 영상을 획득했다. Post-processing은 SPM99 (Statistical Parametric Mapping 99, The Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Oxford 1999)의 correlation법을 사용하여 threshold 0.4∼0.7의 범위에서 통계처리 하였으며, 활성화 영상은 EPI영상과 같은 부위의 T1 강조영상에 overlapping시켰다. 이렇게 얻어진 fMRI 영상으로 활성 영역의 위치를 분석하였다.