Researcher

Alan Miranda Menchaca

Research Expertise:I perform research on motion correction methods and image reconstruction for positron emission tomography (PET). Specifically, I develop motion tracking and reconstruction methods for brain PET scans experiments of awake/freely moving animals. These methods have also been adapted for motion tracking in human brain PET scans. In addition, I develop PET reconstruction approaches to improve image resolution. The raw PET tomographic data is processed and motion tracking algorithms are implemented to measure the motion of the subject during the PET study. Once the motion tracking data has been calculated, it is used in the PET motion correction reconstruction methods to obtain tomographic images without motion artifacts. I have performed brain PET scan experiments of awake rats, in which head motion tracking methods were developed and tested: Marker based optical motion tracking, markerless optical motion tracking, and radioactive point sources motion tracking were considered. The point source tracking method was also implemented in brain PET scans of freely running mice. The point source tracking method has been adapted to a dedicated human brain PET scanner to track the head motion of patients to reduce motion artefacts that occur during longer PET scan sessions.

Keywords:NUCLEAR IMAGING, IMAGE RECONSTRUCTION, POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY (PET), IMAGE PROCESSING, MOTION CORRECTION, Other technical sciences

Disciplines:Nuclear imaging, Digital integrated circuits, Biomedical image processing, Mathematical software

Research techniques:Motion tracking has been performed using optical motion tracking hardware and image processing methods. The use of optical motion tracking hardware require experience in electronics design and programming (microcontrollers programming, circuit design and assembly, etc.). Motion tracking software, and image reconstruction programming is performed by processing the raw PET tomographic data, using programming languages such as Matlab, and C/C++. Image processing is also performed using these programming languages.

Users of research expertise:Electrical and electronic engineers, medical imaging researchers, image processing researchers and medical physicists.