Major
Biomedical Engineering
Minor(s)
Leadership Studies; Business
Advisor
Besio, Walter, G
Advisor Department
Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering
Date
5-2018
Keywords
SCIRun; Biomedical; Engineering; Software; Neuro; Brain
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Abstract
Never before has there been a greater emphasis on improving the shortcomings of treating mental health conditions. Our generation has more knowledge about technological practices with the potential to monitor and treat mental health symptoms than that of any generation before us. A breakthrough in this field made by CREmedical is called Tripolar Concentric Ring Electrodes (TCRE’s), which can measure signals from the brain more accurately than conventional electrodes. At CREmedical, TCREs are being used to study differences in electrical activity in the brain so as to identify abnormalities, and monitor responses to stimulation therapies. This semester I had the opportunity to work with CREmedical to implement a new software for their research called SCIRun, and educate the team on how to utilize this program to possibly improve their results. Since the SCIRun program was entirely new to me, I met the team to discuss their goals and began studying the software in December. I studied several instruction manuals after downloading the main program, three applicable toolkits, and the dataset containing head models. I began with a practice module on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), to learn how to build, visualize, and modify these software networks. In order to model the research that CREmedical conducts, I then built networks operating on a real head model. From displaying a brain to localizing multiple dipole interactions I worked with a broad range of networks in order to share the most possibilities with the team. I was also able to collaborate with the SCIRun team in Utah who provided information on how to correctly mesh different files which is necessary to get accurate results. By the end of the semester I was able to visualize and manipulate six working networks: TMS, tDCS, Simulate EEG, Forward Modeling using Finite Element Method (FEM), Dipole Localization, and Multiple Dipole Analysis. These networks provide a visual representation and data calculation on how varying transcranial stimulations will affect different areas of the brain. After presenting this software to the CREmedical team, I hope that they will be able to more accurately analyze the areas of the brain affected by stimulation before implementing new mental health therapies.
Included in
Bioelectrical and Neuroengineering Commons, Bioimaging and Biomedical Optics Commons, Other Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons