• Title/Summary/Keyword: Medical and biological imaging

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Large-scale Synthesis of Uniform-sized Nanoparticles for Multifunctional Medical Applications

  • Hyeon, Taeg-Hwan
    • Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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    • 2011.02a
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    • pp.1-1
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    • 2011
  • We developed a new generalized synthetic procedure, called as "heat-up process," to produce uniform-sized nanocrystals of many transition metals and oxides without a size selection process. We were able to synthesize uniform magnetite nanocrystals as much as 1 kilogram-scale from the thermolysis of Fe-oleate complex. Clever combination of different nanoscale materials will lead to the development of multifunctional nano-biomedical platforms for simultaneous targeted delivery, fast diagnosis, and efficient therapy. In this presentation, I would like to present some of our group's recent results on the designed fabrication of multifunctional nanostructured materials based on uniform-sized magnetite nanoparticles and their medical applications. Uniform ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles of <3 nm were synthesized by thermal decomposition of iron-oleate complex in the presence of oleyl alcohol. These ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles exhibited good T1 contrast effect. In in vivo T1 weighted blood pool magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), iron oxide nanoparticles showed longer circulation time than commercial gadolinium complex, enabling high resolution imaging. We used 80 nm-sized ferrimagnetic iron oxide nanocrystals for T2 MRI contrast agent for tracking transplanted pancreatic islet cells and single-cell MR imaging. We reported on the fabrication of monodisperse magnetite nanoparticles immobilized with uniform pore-sized mesoporous silica spheres for simultaneous MRI, fluorescence imaging, and drug delivery. We synthesized hollow magnetite nanocapsules and used them for both the MRI contrast agent and magnetic guided drug delivery vehicle.

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PET Radiopharmaceuticals for Tumor Imaging (종양 영상을 위한 PET 방사성의약품)

  • Choe, Yearn-Seong
    • The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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    • v.36 no.1
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    • pp.8-18
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    • 2002
  • Early and accurate diagnosis of tumors using positron omission tomography (PET) has been the focus of considerable interest due to its high metastasis and mortality rates at late detection. PET radiopharmaceuticals-which exhibit a high tumor-to-background uptake ratio, and appropriate metabolic characteristics, and pharmacokinetics-are attractive tools for tumor imaging. Tumor imaging by these radiopharmaceuticals are based on metabolic and receptor imaging. The former is based on accelerated metabolism in tumor tissue compared to normal tissue and the rate roughly corresponding to the rate of growth of tumors. Radiopharmaceuticals for this purpose include radiolabeled sugars, amino acids, and nucleosides which detect increased glucose utilization, protein synthesis, and DNA synthesis, respectively. Tumor receptor imaging is based on the proliferation of tumor cells regulated by many hormones and growth factors, which bind to the corresponding receptors and exhibit the biological responses Radiopharmaceuticals used to image the tumor receptor systems may be ligands for the specific receptors and antibodies for the growth factor receptors. Some antitumor agents have been labeled with radionuclides and used to study in vivo biodistribution and pharmacokinetics in humans. This overview describes typical PET radiopharmaceuticals used for tumor imaging based on their uptake mechanisms.

Patch-based Cortical Source Modeling for EEG/MEG Distributed Source Imaging: A Simulation Study

  • Im Chang-Hwan
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.27 no.2
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    • pp.64-72
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    • 2006
  • The present study introduces a new cortical patch-based source model for EEG/MEG cortical source imaging to consider anatomical constraints more precisely. Conventional source models for EEG/MEG cortical source imaging have used coarse cortical surface mesh or sampled small number of vertices from fine surface mesh, and thus they failed to utilize full anatomical information which nowadays we can get with sub-millimeter modeling accuracy. Conventional ones placed a single dipolar source on each cortical patch and estimated its intensity by means of various inverse algorithms; whereas the suggested cortical patch-based model integrates whole cortical area to construct lead field matrix and estimates current density that is assumed to be constant in each cortical patch. We applied the proposed and conventional models to realistic EEG data and compared the results quantitatively. The quantitative comparisons showed that the proposed model can provide more precise spatial descriptions of neuronal source distribution.

Reduction of Susceptibility Artifact in MR Gradient Echo Imaging (MR Gradient Echo 영상술에서 자화율에 의한 에러의 감소에 관한 연구)

  • Ro, Y.M.;Cho, Z.H.
    • Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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    • v.1990 no.11
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    • pp.19-23
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    • 1990
  • A new technique for reducing the susceptibility artifact in gradient echo imaging which uses a tailored RF pulse is proposed. It is applied to the case of imaging where artifacts and distortions arise due to the high local magnetic field inhomogeneity i. e., the susceptibility. The signal loss and void phenomena due to susceptibility in a voxel are studied and a correction method using a tailored RF pulse is proposed. Applications of this method in imaging are given and experimental results obtained using an human volunteer with a 2.0 T KAIS NMR system are presented.

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Analysis of Synthetic Aperture Techniques for Ultrasound Linear - scan Imaging (초음파 선형주사 영상을 위한 합성구경 기법의 해석)

  • 송태경
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.20 no.4
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    • pp.503-513
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    • 1999
  • A general expression for the beam patterns of various synthetic aperture(SA) techniques was derived based on a unified SA model. This model was used to analyze and compare the performance of existing SA methods. Based on the theoretical studies, we propose a new synthetic aperture technique that is best suitable for the linear-scan imaging. The proposed method enables dynamic tow-way focusing in real imaging so that the B-mode image resolution can be greatly improved. Compared to the conventional focusing technique, the focused beam pattern by the proposed shows the mainlobe width reduced by half and comparable sidelobe levels. Computer simulation results demonstrated the validity of the theoretical analysis and the proposed SA method.

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Biological Mechanism of Suicide (자살의 생물학적 기전)

  • Cheon, Eun-Jin
    • Journal of the Korean society of biological therapies in psychiatry
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    • v.24 no.3
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    • pp.129-141
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    • 2018
  • Suicide is a behavior that is intended to cause death by itself and requires medical treatment, resulting in suicidal attempt or completion. Suicide causes loss of life, damages the body, costs a lot of medical expenses, and causes families to fall into sorrow and suffering therefore this suicide is a huge loss to family and society. There have been attempts to reduce and prevent suicide by understanding the mechanism of suicide. The mechanism of suicide can be thought of as psychological mechanism and biological mechanism. In the past, if we considered the psychological and biological mechanisms separately, the development of neuroscience now connects and integrates these two. Psychological factors affect biological factors and biological temperaments also affect perception or thinking about the situation and increase psychological vulnerability. Distant factors in suicidal behavior-such as childhood adversity and family and genetic predisposition-increase the lifetime risk of suicide. They alter the response to stress and other processes through changes in gene expression and regulation of emotional and behavioral characteristics. Distant factors affect the biological system and consequently changes in these systems can increase the risk of suicide. In other words, the distal factor does not directly induce suicidal behavior but rather acts indirectly through developmental or mediating factors. These mediating factors are impulsive aggressive and anxious trait, and chronic use of substances. The mechanism of this disorder is the abnormality of the serotonin system and the abnormality of the lipid level. Proximal factors are associated with the onset of suicide events and include changes in the major neurotransmitter systems, inflammatory changes, and dysfunction of glial cells in the brain. A series of studies, including a variety of research methods and postmortem and in-vivo imaging studies, show the impairment of the serotonergic neurotransmitter system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress response system for suicidal behavior. These disorders lead to suicidal behavior due to difficulty in cognitive control of mood, pessimism, reactive aggression, abnormality in problem solving abilities, excessive response to negative social signals, severe emotional distress, and cognitive dysregulation of suicidal ideation.

Analysis of Eddy Current Effect in Magnetic Resonance Imaging Using the Finite Element Method (유한요소법에 의한 자기공명영상시스템에서의 와전류 영향 분석)

  • Lee, Jeong-Han;Gang, Hyeon-Su;Jo, Min-Hyeong;Mun, Chi-Ung;Lee, Gang-Seok;Lee, Su-Yeol
    • Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.53-58
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    • 1999
  • Eddy current in MRI systems degrades gradient field linearity and distorts gradient waveform. When the waveform distortion is spatially variant, it is very difficult to perform special imaging techniques such as the echo planar imaging technique or the fast spin echo imaging technique. In this study, we have developed a new technique to estimate the distorted gradient waveforms at any points inside the imaging region using the finite element method. After obtaining the eddy-current-effect transfer function, which represents magnitude and phase characteristics of the gradient field at a particular point, we have used the transfer function to estimate the actual gradient waveforms at the point. To verify the proposed technique, we have compared the estimated gradient waveforms with the measured ones.

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Performance Evaluation of a Rapid Three Dimensional Diffusion MRI

  • Numano, Tomokazu;Homma, Kazuhiro;Nishimura, Katsuyuki
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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    • 2002.09a
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    • pp.356-358
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    • 2002
  • MRI, particularly diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), plays vital roles in detection of the acute brain infarction$\^$1-4/ and others metabolic changes of biological tissues. In general, every molecule in biological tissues may diffuse and move randomly in three-dimensional space. However, in clinical diagnosis, only 2D-DWI is used. The authors have developed a new method for rapid three-dimensional DWI (3D-DWI). In this method, by refocusing of the magnetized spin with the applied gradient field, direction of which is opposite to phase encoding field. Magnetized spin of $^1$H is kept under the SSFP (steady state free precession)$\^$5-6/. Under SSFP, in addition of FID, spin echo and stimulated echo are also generated, so the acquired signal is increased. The signal intensity is increased depending on flip angle (FA) of magnetized spin. This phenomenon is confirmed by human brain and phantom studies. The performance of this method is quantitatively analyzed by using both of conventional spin echo DWI and 3D-DWI. From experimental results, three dimensional diffusion weighted images are obtained correctly for liquid phantoms (water, acetone and oil), diffusion coefficient is enhanced in each image. Therefore, this method will provide useful information for clinical diagnosis.

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