Mayo Clinic
Department of Physiology and Biomedical Engineering
BME Seminar
Rochester, MN
March 31, 2006


Seminar Speaker

Conformal Maps of the Brain and Their Application

Monica K. Hurdal
Department of Mathematics
Florida State University

Flat maps of the human brain computed from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans have increasingly been used in visualizing anatomical and functional data of the brain. However, flat maps have not been utilized to their full potential in terms of analysis or gaining insight into comparing healthy and diseased subject populations. I will discuss current flat mapping approaches and present results on using conformal, or angle-preserving, flat maps of the brain. Conformal maps offer a number of promising mathematical features that may be exploited to characterize shape. I will discuss some of these properties and recent results in using conformal maps to investigate major depressive disorder in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex.



Copyright 2006 by Monica K. Hurdal. All rights reserved.