Lecture by Prof. Manoj Saranathan

Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Science
and
IEEE Signal Processing Society, Bangalore Chapter

cordially invite you to a lecture on

Advances in imaging and segmentation of thalamic nuclei with applications

by

Prof. Manoj Saranathan, Professor of Radiology at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts

Date and time: January 2, 2023, 4 PM
Venue: Multimedia Classroom, Department of Electrical Engineering (EE), IISc.

Coffee will be served at 3.45 PM.

Abstract: The thalamus is a subcortical deep brain structure increasingly implicated in a number of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric conditions. It is subdivided into regions called nuclei which are linked to specific cortical and sensory regions of the brain. However, thalamic nuclei have largely been ignored in most imaging studies as they are mostly invisible in conventional MRI. In this talk, I will present our work on MRI methods to improve visualization of thalamic nuclei as well as cutting edge thalamic nuclei segmentation methods. I will then show examples of characterization of atrophy of specific thalamic nuclei in neurodegenerative diseases as well as for cutting edge neurosurgical treatment of epilepsy and essential tremor.

Biography of the speaker: Manoj Saranathan is an MRI physicist with over twenty-five years of experience in MR physics, pulse sequence development, image reconstruction, and image processing spanning industry and academia. His current research interests are focused on ultra high-resolution imaging and segmentation of deep brain structures like thalamus and hippocampus and the specificity of their involvement in pathology such as alcoholism, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and essential tremor. Another area of interest is high spatio-temporal resolution dynamic contrast enhanced MRI for quantification of physiologic function and cancer. One of his methods, DISCO, is now a product available on all GE MRI scanners since 2017, and is widely used for prostate and breast imaging worldwide. He has a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington, Seattle and is currently a Professor of Radiology at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Hosts: Prof. P. S. Sastry and Prof. Chandra Sekhar Seelamantula, EE, IISc

All are invited.