SNU Professor Jongho Lee research team, developed new brain imaging technology to detect degenerative brain diseases
-allowed quantitative susceptibility mapping of brain iron and myelin using MRI

▲ SNU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Jongho Lee research team : (Left) Professor Jongho Lee, Researcher Jin Gi Lee

 
A new brain imaging technology used as diagnostic index for the degenerative brain disease such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson disease.
 
SNU College of Engineering (Dean Lee Kun-woo) stated on 8th that Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Jongho Lee research team developed innovative brain imaging technology allowing quantitative susceptibility mapping of brain iron and myelin using MRI.
 
The mapping of brain iron and myelin is a key index to diagnose the progress of the degenerative brain disease. However, previous MRI technology lacks quantitative evaluation of each material due to its incapability of distinguishing iron and myelin.
 
The research team paid attention to positive and negative magnetism of the susceptibility sources. With this magnetic property, they found out that iron and myelin affects MRI in different ways. Later, the team inversely estimated the material from the MRI data and quantified susceptibility mapping of brain iron and myelin.
 
Professor Jongho Lee said, "Selectively imaging of magnetic materials such as iron and myelin will help diagnosing the degenerative brain disease such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson disease".
 
Meanwhile, the research was selected as a top five abstract among 6,780 papers submitted to the 25th International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This paper will be presented as a 'highlight of the year' in Hawaii in April.
 

▲ Image of mapping of brain iron (left) and myelin (right) as proposed by the team