Quantitative Evaluation of the Visual System in Glaucoma PatientsMillions of people in the world suffer from glaucoma, the second leading
cause of vision loss in the world. Fewer than 50% of people with
glaucoma are aware of their disease. The blindness caused by glaucoma is
irreversible. Therefore, improved methods of screening and therapy for
glaucoma are urgently needed. Different imaging modalities exist for acquiring images of the eye. Most
of these modalities focus on imaging the retina, but the human visual
system does not only consist of the eye but it is extended into the
brain through the optic nerve till the visual cortex. In this highly interdisciplinary project, we aim to analyze the human
visual system using diffusion tensor imaging in order to investigate the
correlation between the optic radiation changes and the glaucomatous
signs of the optic nerve. Identification of the Optic Radiation:
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is used to monitor the extension of the
visual system inside the brain. DTI is based on diffusion weighted
magnetic resonance imaging. The DTI modality is the only modality that
allows tracking the nerve fibers in the brain non-invasively.
Identification of the optic radiation in diffusion tensor images is
rather a challenging task due to the uncertainty in DTI-data due to its
probabilistic nature and dealing with tensor valued images. Furthermore,
obtaining anatomically meaningful results requires a close collaboration
with medical experts to guide and evaluate the identification process,
which is provided by the cooperation with the neuroradiology and the
ophthalmology departments.
A segmentation algorithm for the optic radiation is currently being
developed that accounts for the probabilistic nature of DTI-data. The
following step will be to evaluate the segmentation and to analyze the
segmented optic radiation and study its correlation with Galucoma. Analysis of the Optic Radiation:
In this part of the project the diffusion tensor imaging is investigated
as an analysis tool of galucoma. The diffusion tensor derived parameters
within the optic radiation are examined and their ability in
differentiating between normal and glaucoma subjects is investigated.
The approaches used for this purpose are global analysis of the optic
radiation and voxel-based analysis of the optic radiation. | Project manager: Prof. Dr. med. Arnd Dörfler, Prof. Dr. med. Georg Michelson, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Hornegger
Project participants: Prof. Dr. med. Tobias Engelhorn, Dr. med. Simone Wärntges, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmed El-Rafei
Keywords: Glaucoma; Diffusion Tensor Imaging; Segmentation; Visual Pathway
Duration: 1.8.2008 - 29.2.2012
Sponsored by: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
Contact: El-Rafei, Ahmed Phone +49 9131 85 27826, Fax +49 9131 85 27270, E-Mail: ahmed.el-rafei@fau.de
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El-Rafei, Ahmed: Automated Segmentation of the Optic Radiation Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging in Glaucoma Patients.Talk: The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc. (ARVO) (Annual Meeting), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, 03.05..2009 | El-Rafei, Ahmed ; Hornegger, Joachim ; Engelhorn, Tobias ; Dörfler, Arnd ; Wärntges, Simone ; Michelson, Georg: Automatic Segmentation of the Optic Radiation using DTI in Glaucoma Patients. In: Tavares, João Manuel R.S. ; Jorge, R.M. Natal (Ed.) : Computational Vision and Medical Image Processing - VipIMAGE 2009 (International Conference VipIMAGE 2009 - II ECCOMAS THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL VISION AND MEDICAL IMAGE PROCESSING Porto, Portugal 14-16.10.2009). Portugal : Taylor and Francis, 2009, pp 293-298. - ISBN 978-0-415-57041-1 | El-Rafei, Ahmed ; ; Wärntges, Simone ; ; Hornegger, Joachim ; Michelson, Georg: Automatic Segmentation of the Optic Radiation Using DTI in Healthy Subjects and Patients with Glaucoma. In: Computational Vision and Medical Image Processing - Recent Trends. Series: Computational Methods in Applied Sciences 19 (2011), pp 1-15 | El-Rafei, Ahmed ; ; Wärntges, Simone ; ; Hornegger, Joachim ; Michelson, Georg: Glaucoma Classification Based on Histogram Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging Measures in the Optic Radiation. In: Pedro Real ; Daniel Diaz-Pernil ; Helena Molina-Abril ; Ainhoa Berciano ; Walter Kropatsch (Ed.) : Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Computer Analysis of Images and Patterns Seville, Spain 29-31.08.2011). Vol. 6854. Berlin/Heidelberg : Springer, 2011, pp 529-536. - ISBN 978-3-642-23671-6 [doi>10.1007/978-3-642-23672-3_64] | El-Rafei, Ahmed ; ; Wärntges, Simone ; ; Hornegger, Joachim ; Michelson, Georg: A framework for voxel-based morphometric analysis of the optic radiation using diffusion tensor imaging in glaucoma. In: Magnetic resonance imaging 29/2011 (2011), No. 8, pp 1076-1087 [doi>10.1016/j.mri.2011.02.034] |
Institution: Chair of Computer Science 5 (Pattern Recognition)
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