Invited Talk by Dr. Yigal Shoshan

Date: Friday, 17 December 2010 Time: 10:30-11:00 Location: MI 03.13.010

Clinical applications of fMRI and tractography (DTI) in surgery near eloquent brain areas

Abstract: Over the past two decades the neuroscientific and medical communities have witnessed a tremendous growth in the field of noninvasive imaging of brain function. There is no doubt that fMRI – a functional imaging method that measures the hemodynamic changes that occur during physical, cognitive or emotional tasks – has attracted the most attention. fMRI is a relatively accessible method, which is non- invasive, has excellent spatial and temporal resolution and allows for studying the functionality of the entire network of brain areas in parallel. These advantages have transformed fMRI within a decade to be the leading technique in behavioral neuroscience. fMRI has presented the opportunity to study the relationship between cognitive processes and neuronal activity in the healthy human brain, and thereby this powerful tool has significantly expanded cognitive research beyond the classical approaches of animal studies and lesion studies in humans. This talk describes clinical applications of fMRI and DTI, for example in pre-surgical planning or brain tumors surgery.

Biography: Dr. Yigal Shoshan graduated from medical schoon at Technion Israel Institution of Technology in 1987. Since 1999, he has specialized in surgical neuro-oncology, stereotactic surgery and radiosurgery. He is a senior lecturer in neurosurgeru at the Hebrew University Hospital, Hadassah School of Medicine. Among others, he is project leader for surgical neuronavigation, intraoperative MRI and stereotactic neurosurgery. Since 2010, he heads the sub-commitee for future robotics and technological developments in Hadassah. He is collaborating with CAMP together with Dr. Ruby Shamir and Prof. Leo Joskowicz from Hebrew University, in the field of Augmented Reality in neurosurgery.