Grid-Enabled Neurosurgical Imaging Using Simulation

Scientists have created a new brain scan that is powered by 20 supercomputers. It generates a real time image of the insides of the human brain. Apparently surgeons will be able to use it to carry out a variety of brain surgeries with much more accuracy. The system is called Genius (Grid-enabled neurosurgical imaging using simulation) and it has been developed by several researchers at University College London. The story can be found in a recent new scientist article here. It sounds like it basically takes 2D X-ray shots at different angles around a 180 degree arc. The supercomputers then process that data at around a trillion calculations per second.


This would allow researchers to visualize maps of the arteries inside a person's brain. Currently sometimes brain surgery may result in a patient suffering from a haemorrhage (bleeding in the brain). Brain surgeons today often have to do this types of surgeries blind. This could result in death for the person undergoing the brain surgery. So this new brain imaging may mean safer brain surgery for removing clots and other conditions that are life-threatening. This will open up the door for better surgical procedures for aneurysms and atherosclerosis. Perhaps in the future this will be coupled with the robotic neuroarm to improve surgical outcomes among brain surgery patients.

You can read lots more about this project at this page. Apparently it has been in the works for some time now. It may be another year before doctors perform the first real time brain surgery using this technology.