Presented by Signal Processing Chapter, IEEE North Jersey Section and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NJIT
Professor Wen-Ching Liu
Department of Radiology
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
Newark, NJ
Time: 4:45 PM, Wednesday, April 21, 2004. (Pizza: 4:30 PM.)
Place: New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Room 202, ECE Center, Newark, NJ.

Summary

Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) fMRI is a non-invasive technique to map the brain activation associated with stimulation. This technique has been demonstrated to be useful in many fields especially for neurosurgical treatment planing. Currently, BOLD fMRI has been employed in nuerosurgical operations in our hospital for neurosurgery and radiosurgery to identify the eloquent cortex for tumor patients. Due to the influence of a tumor, the spatial pattern of BOLD motor maps may be a lot of different in patients. However, this variation caused by the tumor is still unclear yet. A new challenge of using different tools to better understand the variations and properly identify the functional tissue is critical in providing tumor patients a better chance in preserving vital function during the surgery. This talk will cover the following topics: 1) basic concepts of BOLD fMRI, 2) implementation of BOLD fMRI in clinical aspects, 3) BOLD signal and tumor.

Biography

Wen-Ching Liu, Ph.D. obtained his Ph.D. in Medical Physics from University of Cincinnati, 1992. He pursued his postdoctoral training in MR imaging at Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati until 1995. Late 1995, Dr. Liu joined the Department of Radiology at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School as an Instructor for functional imaging. He was one of the pioneers to establish the functional imaging laboratory in Radiology, UMDNJ-NJMS. He was promoted to an Assistant Professor in 1998.

Dr. Liu’s research interest is to apply the functional MR imaging technology to various clinical applications. Currently, there are several on going studies including 1) fMRI for brain tumor patients in treatment planning. The purpose of this study is to properly identify the vital cortex (or called eloquent cortex) near the tumor using fMRI. Once the eloquent cortex of a tumor patient can be properly identified, this area may be better preserved during the neurosurgical or radiological procedures and hopefully to improve the patient’s quality of life. 2) Functional imaging for vagal nerve stimulator implanted epilepsy patients. In this study, functional imaging will be used to detect the brain responses during the stimulation. The improving index for epilepsy patients will be identified from the brain responses and used for optimizing the treatment to epilepsy patients. 3) Brain responses induced by acupuncture stimulation. It is desired that the functional imaging can reveal the secrets of the ancient medical treatment and thus, its efficacy can be significantly improved.

For more information contact: Yun Shi shi@njit.edu (973)-596-3501, Alfredo Tan tan@fdu.edu (201) 692-2347, and Hong Man hman@stevens-tech.edu (201)-216-5038.