Advanced imaging technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MR) have led to remarkable improvement in our knowledge of brain metabolism, function, and biochemistry. And yet, our understanding of most neurological disorders is at best rudimentary. Etiology of such common diseases as drug and alcohol addiction, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's dementia and Parkinson's remains elusive. Malignant brain tumors such as glioblastoma continue being fatal. Changes happening in the brain in such common syndromes as hospital-acquired delirium, and post-operative cognitive decline, are not understood. Most studies involving advanced brain imaging remain small due to logistical challenges, cost constraints, and difficulty of scanning neurological patients in standard radiology equipment. Acceleration of brain research is required to elucidate the pathophysiology of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Brain Biosciences was established to make neurological imaging comfortable, inexpensive, and widely available both in the clinic and in the research laboratory. One of the common problems encountered in imaging research is unintentional patient motion. Head movement during Positron Emission Tomography (PET) degrades PET image quality, leads to image artifacts, and introduces quantitative errors. Motion is particularly common in confused patients with neurological diseases, drug addiction, and movement disorders. This problem becomes especially relevant as research involving lengthy dynamic scans, and high-resolution brain imaging becomes common. While sedation is often used to minimize the patient motion, sedative drugs change brain biochemistry, interfere with radiopharmaceutical uptake, and may cause side effects. Physical restraints are often distressing, and may increase patient agitation. In this direct Phase II SBIR proposal we seek to develop, clinically validate, and receive FDA clearance for FREEMotion(tm), a video-based head tracking system, enabling motion- compensated brain Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging of neurological patients without sedation or physical head restraint.
This application proposes to develop and validate a novel head tracking system capable of compensating for patient motion during high-resolution brain Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. This device will lower improve the quality, comfort, and quantification of brain PET in patients with neurological and psychiatric diseases, as well as drug abuse. The proposed device will have applications both in the clinic and neuroscience research.
