According to the "pundits" from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), in 5 years, 3D brain scanning will become quite common procedure and will cost much less than today. The algorithm that they developed allows not only to display all the nerve cells of an organ (there are about 200 million of them) and synapses emanating from them (science does not know the number, but several hundred trillion - for sure), but also to create volumetric models. The last achievement is the most significant, since if there is a tumor in the patient's brain, doctors will not only be able to see its location, but also determine the exact size and composition. So, what is waiting for medicine in just 5 years and how it all began, read below.
MRI examination
Those who have come across this type of diagnostics know that it is very informative. The human brain is scanned by electromagnetic waves, the device emits signals that reflect its areas in different colors, after which they are converted into an image. This is a very painstaking work, because a huge amount of data needs to be processed.
The convenience of MRI examination is that the doctor can view a three-dimensional image of the brain from all sides, concentrating on certain or disputable areas. The method has its pros and cons, but in the presence of a tumor in the organ, it is sometimes difficult for the doctor to diagnose it or get a complete picture of the affected area.
CT examination
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The main difference of this technology is the use of X-rays. Placed in a circle over the patient lying on the couch, they are able to instantly photograph the organ from different angles. Further work is not much different from MRI: a computer converts images into a three-dimensional image.
A fairly accurate diagnosis, the image of brain slices can be up to 1 mm in thickness, but the same problem: the doctor is not always able to examine the structure of the tumor and the damage that it has already caused.
Thanks to Dr. Stevin Keating, Ph. D., who was diagnosed with a brain tumor by doctors and his quest to find out how fast it is growing and what changes are taking place in his brain, 3D design technology exists today.
3D brain model
Stephen, when his brain tumor grew the size of a baseball and the doctors couldn't tell him what to do next, collected all the MRI and CT scans and went to MIT.
The institute's researchers were so captivated by the idea of teaching a 3D printer to create mock-ups of the brain and the desire to help a poor 26-year-old boy that they immediately got down to work. An algorithm that translates photographs into a 3D model was written and tested by Stephen.
The technology they have created is capable of analyzing 1000 times faster and producing a scan result in the form of a 3D model. Now not only doctors, but also patients will be able to hold their own volumetric copies of the brain in their hands.
Another advantage of this invention is the ability not only to detect pathology in an organ, but also to measure its size, to see which areas it has touched and in what condition they are. This is truly a great and very timely discovery, because such information processing can be carried out not only with the results on the brain, but also on all organs and tissues of the body.
3D technologies: application in medicine
Printers that create brain models using the algorithm are already in operation in some US hospitals. While they are expensive, but this is not the worst. The fact is that thanks to Stephen, a new medical specialty has appeared: a diagnostician for 3D visualization of internal organs, and the training as such has not yet been established. That is why scientists predict that specialists in this profile will appear within the next 5 years, after which, perhaps, MRI and CT will be gradually replaced by more "advanced" technology.
What else 3D technology can give to sick people is scanning: an instant image of what is happening in the human body (in all tissues, bones and organs at the same time) in a matter of seconds. Such a device was developed at the University of Davis (California, USA) and has no analogues in the world. Scientists are able to see the processes taking place inside a person and track any violations in the functioning of organs or the presence of pathologies in them in real time.
A new word in science
One discovery, as a rule, causes the appearance or failure of another. So, by scanning the human brain in three-dimensional space, scientists saw how primitive they considered it, based on their past ideas about it.
For example, they realized that connections between synapses are created according to completely different schemes and are much more complex than they expected. They managed to calculate (more precisely, a computer program) that there are more than 125 trillion of these thinnest connections in the cerebral cortex alone. It turns out that there are more of them than the stars included in our galaxy (about 1500 times).
They came to a disappointing conclusion: if every synapse is a microprocessor, then the artificial intelligence they hoped to create in the near future will remain a pipe dream. The fact is that there are several times more connections in the brain than all the transistors and routers available on the planet combined, and it is simply unrealistic to coordinate their work as perfectly as synapses do.
What to expect from scientists?
The new method for processing the results of brain scans is a new invention that will still be refined and improved. Who knows, maybe after only 5 years, pharmacies will sell mini-scanners for the body, so that everyone can receive information about their health on a computer or gadget, even before going to work.
So far, the algorithm for creating a 3D model of the brain is used in emergency or especially difficult cases, when tumor growth is counted literally in minutes.
Author: Kardashova Inga