Back to Business March 25, 2008
Posted by tomography in Vacation.Tags: Mont Blanc, St. Gervais
2 comments
Dear Readers!
I have just returned from my annual winter holiday, and I am thrilled to see that TomographyBlog.com is going strong, while the number of feeders and visitors increasing steadily. What really made me happy this past 24 hours is that our blog came up to number 245 on the MedBlog.nl list of 100 English Medical Blogs from 543. So, back to what I was telling you earlier; I spent a couple days in a beautiful ski paradise called Saint-Gervais which is located just a couple miles away from the Mont Blanc. The bus trip was tantalizing, lasting 22 hours one way, but it took us through the fruitful valleys of Italy and the luxuriousness of Geneve, so in the end we were sleep deprived but our hearts were filled with great experience. Generally, the weather was very warm except above 1500 meters. The last day we got about 1 meter of fresh snow, that put our skills to the test. Now, I am back, no broken bones or twisted joints (I know you would love to see some x-rays:) ), and I am ready to get back to this blogging business. Unfortunately, Imre and I have our hands full with an Opthalmology oral exam this week, but don’t worry, posts are on the way! Until then, here is a photo for you that I took on a mountain peak called Aig. De Roselette (Elevation of 2384m) in the commune of Les Contamines.
- Andras
Milestone nr. 2. March 22, 2008
Posted by tomography in Nuclear Medicine.2 comments
Dear Reader,
These two months went on quite fast and we are happy that You visited or commented our site. Thanks to Your interest, tomographyblog is over it’s 11000th visitors! Thank you!
Earlier we were telling you about a weekly discussion forum, that we plan to start. Finally we found some sources and got the permission to use the cases you can read, study, give a diagnose or comment in any way from this weekend on.
We are going to present interesting, rare cases, but you are also welcome to send in your own cases and thus “host” this brainstormer. So everybody is welcomed!
Hopefully a larger community of doctors will come together here and take part in creating a great collection of cases.
The whole brain Atlas March 17, 2008
Posted by tomography in CT, education, MRI, Nuclear Medicine, PET, Radiology, Tomography.add a comment
This morning we’ve received a very helpful comment from Y.S., who is running a medical blog also, prep4md.blogspot.com. He suggested, to visit the site of Harvard Medical School. The library I could explore there was amazing to me.
In The Whole Brain Atlas you can view MRI sections through a living human brain as well as corresponding sections stained for cell bodies or for nerve fibers. The stained sections are from a different brain than the one which was scanned for the MRI images…
A great collection to explore neuroimaging for students and even for MDs. In the Normal brain section you can set slice, anatomical structure, choose between MRI T1 or T2 and even PET. There are some Quicktime motion pictures eg of vascular anatomy. Diseases are sorted, so you can study these separative groups: Cerebrovascular, Neuroplastic, Degenerative and Inflammatory or Infectious disease.
MRIs are allowed anyone to use them with no restrictions as long as you mention their source. Therefor the Copyright information:
All of the images on this site are copyrighted. They were produced with the support of public funds, and we wish to keep them available for public use. You may use them for any purpose which will not interfere with their use by others. We do ask that you SECURE OUR PERMISSION, so that we can track the uses being made.
There is no charge for the permission nor for the use of the images. The permission process is important for our guidance in producing additional images and also for maintaining our public support. We also ask that you credit this site as the source of the image(s), and the National Science Foundation for its support.
Thank you for the tip Y.S!
-Imre
Online Dictionary of Radiology Words: Incomplete project March 12, 2008
Posted by tomography in Nuclear Medicine, Radiology, web 2.0.Tags: online dictionary, Radiology, web 2.0
8 comments
I found a neat dictionary of radiology and nuclear medicine related words at radiologystudents.com. You may search the dictionary by categories, alphabetical order, or by the approximate time of addition. I believe that this is a great concept, and as such it is the first online diagnostic imaging related dictionary, but it has to develop much more, so that the explanations and the number of listed words may expand.
This site is also powered by WordPress, and I believe it is run by the author(s) of the blog titled Nothing2hide.net. But the dictionary, unfortunately, cannot be edited by all visitors, therefor it is not taking advantage of the great power of web 2.0. Why? It has such great potential!
If the authors of radiologystudents.com are reading this, please consider going public with this dictionary so that students and professionals of diagnostic imaging may help build a better and bigger dictionary.
- Andras
Neurofibromatosis: MRI can help! March 11, 2008
Posted by tomography in Cancer, MRI, Radiology.Tags: MRI, neurofibromatosis, NF1, NF2
5 comments
Today, I was browsing WordPress randomly, and I came across a blog titled Neurofibromatosis Cafe. It is run by Reggie Bibbs, who has a rare disorder called neurofibromatosis. NF is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder, and it has two types:
- NF 1: Incidence 1:3500
- NF 2: Incidence 1:40,000
NF 1 is characterized by skin lesions (neurofibromas), hamartomas of the iris, pigmented birthmarks, and tumors of the optic nerve. A typical example is shown here:
NF 2 is characterized by bilateral acoustic neuromas on the vestibulocochlear nerve. Here is a CT scan showing an example of NF 2 (black arrows):
The problem with neuromas is that they are very difficult to operate and may cause serious symptoms, though benign. A team of surgeons at the Mayo Clinic reported that they can identify patients with confidence whose operational outcomes would be favorable using an 3-Tesla MRI scanner. This is great, because we are talking about a rare disorder, therefor surgeons cannot get adequate experience to operate neurofibromas with high success. If the surgeon is able to visualize the anatomical position and relation correctly beforehand, then the operation will more likely succeed.
This new technology allows a multidisciplinary approach to be performed safely in these rare tumors that were once considered unresectable, says Dr Spinner.
If you would like to get more information, I recommend the following articles and websites:
And a video from YouTube:
- Andras
fMRI: Reading your mind March 8, 2008
Posted by tomography in fMRI, MRI, Radiology.Tags: bold technique, fMRI, MRI
1 comment so far
The brain is the largest consumer of oxygenated blood in the human body. When neural activity increases in certain areas of the brain, during talking or pondering a problem for example, perfusion of those areas are hence increased. This change in blood supply can be detected by fMRI or functional magnetic resonance imaging thanks to two phenomena:
- the different signals of oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin,
- and the increased local perfusion.
With the BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) technique it is possible to map a patient’s brain before a risky surgery so that important areas such as Broca’s or Wernicke’s can be spared.
(Broca’s area activated in four patient’s. Source: Journal of Young Investigators.)
Just recently, in a research paper published in Nature, scientists at The University of California at Berkeley claim to have figured out a way to predict the image that their subject is looking at.
Their experiement consisted of two phases. In the first phase the subjects were asked to view 1750 images and their brain activity was monitored with fMRI. This means that every 4 seconds a MRI scan was obtained. During the second phase the subjects were shown 120 novel images, and the software, based on previous experience, “guessed” what image the subjects were looking at.
How accurate was the software? In some cases it was correct 9 out of 10 times. In others its performance was very low; about 0,8%. How can these results contribute to scientific development?
Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person’s visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone. Imagine a general brain-reading device that could reconstruct a picture of a person’s visual experience at any moment in time.
So, in the near future it might be possible to decode and store dreams for further viewing with this technique. I can think of one practical use: that is to help people suffering from PTSD verbalize their traumatizing experiences.
Further reading:
- Nature News
- Nature milestones: fMRI
- Article from The Guardian
- Original paper from Nature, published online 5 March 2008 (subscription required)
- Andras
Web 2.0 Tools for diagnostic imaging professionals part 3 March 5, 2008
Posted by tomography in web 2.0.1 comment so far
Hello! In our last two editions of Great Web 2.0 Tools for Diagnostic Imaging Professionals we got acquainted with 20 useful web applications, and now I have collected enough for another edition. If you missed the first two editions you may check them in our Imaging 2.0 section. I invite you to give all these a try and let me know which one(s) you found useful. So let us get right into it:
1. It seems that today the majority of presentations start and end with three letters: ppt. And from that, people usually associate to Microsoft’s Power Point. And that’s great (to Microsoft 
. But there are online applications to make attractive slide shows. And since these programs are not installed on your hard disc, you may work with them even while on the road, when your computer obeys Murphy’s Law and crashes the night before your presentation.
- Thumbstacks is a simple presentation tool. It lacks video, animations, sounds and drawing, but if you just need a handsome, clean presentation that can be accessed from a browser (even during a conference), Thumbstacks is your tool. Check out their sample, introductory presentation that runs right from your browser.
- Zoho Show is a bit more advanced than the previous one as it allows for version control and has animation. You may import images from Flick’r and all text in a presentation can be searched. Like Thumbstacks, you may present your work online and share with anyone.
- Google Docs presentation maker is probably the easiest to use, and it comes bundled with your Gmail account. You may edit your presentations in real-time with more people, and it allows you to import your files in multiple formats.
2. If you are finished with your presentation you may store it online on SlideShare. This site has a ton of presentations previously uploaded by others, so it is for ppt. what YouTube is for videos; an endless and ever growing library covering virtually all topics.
3. In this new Web 2.0 dawn sharing is everything! With Vyew you may host online meetings, discussions and presentations in real-time and connect people from all corners of the world.
4. Change your browser to a better one: use Flock! Why? Because Flock is safe and simple to use like Firefox, but is has more cool and useful features. Flock is your ultimate online multimedia dashboard. It has never been easier to keep track of your feeds (text and media), email, and friends. Flock facilitates blogging with easy drag-and-drop functions, among others. Be sure to read my post on Flock.
5. Find out how to do just about anything on this site. You will find detailed descriptions and useful images. Remember the post “How to turn your computer screen into an X-ray viewer?” This is where it came from.
6. Use ajax instead of Office!
- ajaxSketch is a web-based drawing tool that provides a familiar environment for diagramming, creating flow charts, free hand drawing and more. You can perform functions such as resize, rotate, change background or pen colors, and alter opacity…all from a Firefox browser!
- ajaxwrite is a web-based word processor that can read and write Microsoft Word and other standard document formats. Anytime you need to open, read or write a word processor file, simply point your Firefox browser to www.ajaxwrite.com and in seconds a full-featured program will be available for you to open, edit, print and save.
- ajaxXLSviewer is a web-based spreadsheet viewer that allows you to easily open any .xls file within your Firefox browser. Compatibility with Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice allows ajaxXLS to preserve all your common cell formatting categories such as text styles, decimals, currencies, dates, and times as well as formulas, backgrounds and borders from the original documents.
7. Create tutorials about anything with Wink. This free software works on multiple platforms, and you may import your work in several different formats such as Flash, PDF, HTML or in a standalone executable file, and more!
8. Stay up to date with ODEO, a free library of podcasts and mp3′s. All material on this site is free to download, and you may subscribe to your favorite podcast providers’ feed. Check out these great examples:
- Cardiac CT, and an explanation as to
- what radiology really is.
9. Create your CV online and upload it into a huge database so that your next employer may find you easily. With VisualCV you may add photos and even videos of your sample work, and you can share your CV with whomever you like, but you control the amount of information each party can view about you. Certainly, importing your CV in multiple formats is a piece of cake.
10. And the last one is for fun: go back to school with the help of web 2.0 and The Massachusetts’s Institute of Technology. Brush up on your knowledge with lecture notes and poscasts on 1800 courses! Check out my post about this topic and be sure to visit the MIT’s website.
- Andras
Tags: Web2.0 tools, imaging, Odeo, MIT, Wink, Vyew, Ajax, Flock, Slideshare, Zoho, Thumbstacks
Brush up on your Physics and Chemistry with MITOPENCOURSEWARE! March 4, 2008
Posted by tomography in education, web 2.0.add a comment
The beauty of diagnostic imaging is that one has to be a chemist, a physicist and a doctor at the same time to appreciate and understand all about this area of medicine. But as this science evolves one needs to store a lot of new information and some of the old ones tend to sink down a little bit, making them more difficult to access quickly. So, instead of picking up one of your old, dusty and probably out-of-date college books, why don’t you get a fresh start at these subjects with the help of Web 2.0 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
Currently number 7 on U.S.News’ list of America’s Best Colleges, MIT is committed to:
generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.
Since 2002 you may take some of MIT’s courses and exams via the Internet! Lecture notes are available in pdf., while podcasts can be downloaded in rm., and mp3. formats. Older courses are updated, and new ones are added continuously, so check regularly or sign up to their RSS feed! Some are even translated to Spanish, Chinese and other languages. OCW materials may be downloaded and used freely, but it is stated on the site that these materials do not reflect the whole content of a course and that MIT does not guarantee a degree!
If you feel like taking a dive in MIT course materials, I recommend you try these:
- Andras
Flock
