• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.277-289
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• 2009

Recently, functional MRI has been used to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of acupuncture and the specificity of acupoint. The group data tend to be regarded as more important than the individual data in the most of previous studies. This study was designed to investigate the effect of the variability of individual data on the group results. A functional MRI (fMRI) of the whole brain was performed in fifteen healthy subjects during placebo and acupuncture stimulations at the ST36 acupoint. After remaining at rest for 30 seconds, the acupuncture was inserted and twisted at the rate of 2 Hz for 45 seconds and then the acupuncture was removed immediately. This process was repeated three times. Individual and group analyses were performed by voxel-based analyses using SPM2 software. Visual inspections of the activation and deactivation maps from individual sessions have shown the large variability across fifteen subjects. This means that the group data reflected the brain activation responses of only a few subjects. We suggest that the individual data should be presented to demonstrate the effect of acupuncture.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.46-54
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• 2003

In this paper, we propose segmentation algorithm for MR brain images using the histogram of T1-weighted, T2-weighted and PD images. Segmentation algorithm is composed of 3 steps. The first step involves the extraction of cerebrum images by ram a cerebrum mask over three input images. In the second step, peak ranges are determined from the histogram of the cerebrum image. In the final step, cerebrum images are segmented using coarse to fine clustering technique. We compare the segmentation result and processing time according to peak ranges. Also compare with the other segmentation methods. The proposed algorithm achieved better segmentation results than the other methods.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.231-240
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• 2014

The purpose of this study were to analyze that the Seoul neuropsychological screening battery (SNSB) for the evaluating cognitive assessment of the Parkinson's disease patients with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) and the changes of the cerebral ventricle volume in the brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and we has been bring forward the guideline to determine the diagnostic criteria for the PD-MCI. To achieve this, we was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease patients (PD-MCI group: 34 patients; Parkinson's disease with normal cognition, PD-NC group: 34 patients) to perform the SNSB test for the attention, language, memory, visuospatial, and frontal/executive functions and the brain MRI. Additionally, to compared the change of the cerebral ventricle volume, we performed the brain MRI for the 32 normal control (NC) group. The volumetric analysis for a specific cerebral ventricle performed by using Freesurfer Ver. 5.1 (Massachusetts general Hospital, Boston MA, USA). As a results, compared to the PD-NC group, the PD-MCI group were statistically significant reduction in the ability to perform the memory and the visuospatial function (p<0.05). The volumetric changes for a specific cerebral ventricle were statistically significant variation in the left and right lateral ventricle, left and right inferior lateral ventricle, and 3rd ventricle. Although, in order to compared the objectification, the normalized percentage applied to the volumetric changes showed to extend the PD-MCI group than the PD-NC group. Specially, the left and right ventricle extension for the PD-MCI patients conspicuously had showed a quantitative linear relationship between the memory and the visuospatial function for the SNSB (r>0.5, p<0.05). Therefore, we were able to judge the diagnostic criteria of the PD-MCI through that can observe the volumetric variation of the specific cerebral ventricle by using Freesurfer in brain MRI, and to analyze the correlation between the SNSB.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.87-94
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• 2007

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of fast inversion recovery (FIR) and magnetization-prepared three dimensional gradient echo sequence (3D GRE) T1-weighted sequences for neonatal brain imaging compared with spin echo (SE) sequence in a 3T MR unit. Materials and Methods: T1-weighted axial SE, FIR and 3D GRE sequences were evaluated from 3T brain MR imaging in 20 neonates. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of different tissues was measured and contrast-to-noise ratios (CNR) were determined and compared in each of the sequences. Visual analysis was carried out by grading gray-white matter differentiation, myelination, and artifacts. The Wilcoxon signed ranked test was used for evaluation of the statistical significance of CNR differences between the sequences. Results: Among the three sequences, the 3D GRE had the best SNRs. CNRs obtained with FIR and 3D GRE were statistically superior to those obtained with SE; these CNRs were better on the 3D GRE compared to the FIR. Gray to white matter differentiation and myelination were better delineated on the FIR and 3D GRE than the SE. However, motion artifacts were more commonly observed on the 3D GRE and flow-related artifacts of vessels were frequently seen on the FIR. Conclusion: FIR and 3D GRE are valuable alternative T1-weighted sequences to conventional SE imaging of the neonatal brain at 3T providing superior image quality.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.585-592
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• 2012

Food is crucial for the nutrition and survival of humans. Taste system is one of the fundamental senses. Taste cells detect and respond to five basic taste modalities (sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami). However, the cortical processing of taste sensation is much less understood. Recently, there were many efforts to observe the brain activation in response to taste stimulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and optical imaging. These different techniques do not provide directly comparable data each other, but the complementary investigations with those techniques allowed the description and understanding of the sequence of events with the dynamics of the spatiotemporal pattern of activation in the brain in response to taste stimulation. The purpose of this study is the understanding of the brain activities to taste stimuli in sensory and affective aspects and the reviewing of the recent research of the gustotopic map by functional brain mapping.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
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• v.13A no.5 s.102
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• pp.465-472
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• 2006

Recently, many suggestions have been made in image segmentation methods for extracting human organs or disease affected area from huge amounts of medical image datasets. However, images from some areas, such as brain, which have multiple structures with ambiruous structural borders, have limitations in their structural segmentation. To address this problem, clustering technique which classifies voxels into finite number of clusters is often employed. This, however, has its drawback, the influence from noise, which is caused from voxel by voxel operations. Therefore, applying image enhancing method to minimize the influence from noise and to make clearer image borders would allow more robust structural segmentation. This research proposes an efficient structural segmentation method by filtering based clustering to extract detail structures such as white matter, gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid from brain MR. First, coherence enhancing diffusion filtering is adopted to make clearer borders between structures and to reduce the noises in them. To the enhanced images from this process, fuzzy c-means clustering method was applied, conducting structural segmentation by assigning corresponding cluster index to the structure containing each voxel. The suggested structural segmentation method, in comparison with existing ones with clustering using Gaussian or general anisotropic diffusion filtering, showed enhanced accuracy which was determined by how much it agreed with the manual segmentation results. Moreover, by suggesting fine segmentation method on the border area with reproducible results and minimized manual task, it provides efficient diagnostic support for morphological abnormalities in brain.

• Journal of the Korea Computer Graphics Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.1-5
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• 2004

본 논문에서는 인체의 머리 부분을 촬영한 자기 공명 촬영 영상(MRI: Magnetic Resonance Imaging)에서 뇌 영역의 대뇌 피질 만을 분할하는 방법에 대해 제시하고자 한다. 뇌의 해부학적 구조를 파악할 경우에 영상 내에 함께 보여지는 두개골과 뇌척수액 등을 제외한 대뇌피질 영역을 분할하면 보다 효과적인 정보 분석 및 진단이 가능하게 된다. 본 논문에서는 3단계 알고리즘을 제시한다. 첫번째 단계에서는 Speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD)를 이용하여 영상 내에 존재하는 잡음을 제거하기 위한 필터링이다. 두번째 단계에서는 필터링된 결과를 이용하여 추출된 임계값과 사용자의 인터렉션인 씨드 포인트를 통해 영상분할을 수행하고, 세 번째 단계에서는 후 처리를 통해 분할 결과를 보완한다. 영상분할 결과의 정확성을 측정하기 위하여 현재 병원의 의료진들이 사용하고 있는 Mayo clinic사의 Analyze를 이용하여 분할된 결과와의 오류를 측정하였다. 또한 최종 결과에 대해 ultravis를 이용한 볼륨 렌더링으로 영상분할의 최종 결과를 제시하였다.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2023.05a
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• pp.13-14
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• 2023

뇌의 전기적 신경활동을 측정하는 뇌전도(EEG)는 저렴하게 취득할 수 있고 높은 시간 해상도를 갖는 반면 공간적 정보를 제공하지는 않는다. 기능적 자기공명영상(fMRI)은 혈류변화를 감지하여 뇌활동을 측정하는 방식으로서 높은 공간 분해능을 갖지만 고가의 비용과 설비를 요구한다. 최근 저렴하게 취득할 수 있는 EEG 데이터로부터 딥러닝을 사용하여 fMRI 합성영상을 생성하는 기술이 제안되었지만, 저주파수 대역에서 EEG와 fMRI 간의 뇌과학적 상관관계를 반영하지는 않는다. 본 연구에서는 휴식상태에서 취득된 EEG 데이터를 스펙트로그램으로 변환한 후 저주파수 특성을 사용하여 fMRI 합성영상을 생성하는 U-net 기반의 크로스 모달리티 변환 모델의 실현가능성을 평가하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.2985-2989
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• 2009

An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of ceramic sheet on concentration of students studies. To demonstrate the improvement in the concentration of study, we obtained functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which has superior time resolution and measures brain noninvasively by using intrinsic contrast agent. As a result of Brainwave measurement, we could verify the blood flow's activate in the nearby frontal lobe related to memory process and noticeable ratio change in absolute alpha wave and beta wave after the analysis of Brainwave measurement. fMRI ascertains the physiological function of the brain and is being used to prevent the trouble medically that can be caused before and after the operation. For the visibility of cranial nerve network, many researches will be carried out to develope the product which is related to brain like concentration of study.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 2000

Purpose : The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of cerebral response to motor tasks in patients with schizophrenia compared with normal subjects using functional MRI. Materials and methods ; Nine right handed-schizophrenic patients and six right-handed normal subjects were included. We used right hand movement as task. Series of 120 consecutive echo-planar images per section were acquired during three cycles of task and rest activations. Lateralization index of cortical response was measured and compared between patients and normal subjects. Results ; Right hand motor task was associated with greater activation in left sensorimotor cortex than the right in normal subjects. Schizophrenia patients showed relatively decreased activation in left cortex and increased activation in right cortex compared with normal subjects. In one patient, reversed lateralization was noted. Conclusion : Normal hemispheric asymmetry of cortical response to motor task was found in different pattern in schizophrenia. Our result is consistent with functional disturbance of motor circuitry in this disorder. Functional MRI will play an important role in diagnosis and research of this disorder.