The 3-D Imaging Guidance System for the Ultrasound Treatment System on Animal with Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson』s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder disease. The currentsurgical approaches are to disable thalamus or pallidum by means of ablation or stimulation.However, risks still occurs while inserting electrodes or probes into patient』s deep brain region. Potential risks include internal bleeding, permanent tissue damage of the electrode insert path, and possible neural fiber damage. On the other hand, high-intensity focused-ultrasound contains the nature of conducting highly selective thermal ablations and at the same time preventing the surrounding tissues undamaged, has a high potential to be a promising surgical tool alternative for Parkinson』s disease. Thepurpose of this study is to propose a prototype system establishment of using high-intensity focused ultrasound to treat the Parkinson』s disease under the designed stereo-tactic guidance. In this sub-project, we focus on the design of a stereo-tactic guidance system. The designed stereo-tactic guidance system for an animal clinical experiment in this proposalcontains 4 sub-tasks: (1) multi-modal medical imaging registration and fusion methods, (2) the design of an animal pinned holder, (3) the design of a user』s interface embedded with other functions, and (4) the development of brain organization segmentation functions. In this sub-project, we will combine our previous rigid registration methods with elastic registration methods and other latest technologies to design a suitable guidance system for the proposed ultrasound treatment system on animal』s brain with Parkinson』s disease. In the first year, a premiere registration system for MRI imaging and an animal pinned holder are built. In the second year, other modal medical imaging registration and fusion methods are developed and the previous registration and fusion methods are cooperated with the ultrasound system to test the system accuracy. In the third year, the brain organization segmentation functions are developed to assistant the treatment evaluation.

Project ID:PB9706-0380
External Project ID:NSC95-2221-E182-033-MY3