All information from our body and the environment converges in our brain and is transformed into reactions in milliseconds. It is essential for medicine and research to know what our switching centre looks like. Thanks to structural imaging, they learn how the cosmos's head is structured. Functional methods are used to observe it more closely during work. In our current Topic of the Month you can read about the possibilities offered by this type of imaging, why it is important for the development of individual therapies and where there is still room for improvement.
Brain mapping: preoperative planning with functional MRI
A surgery already begins before the patient is lying on the operating table – namely with the planning. For example, if brain surgery is imminent, the brain must first be mapped. This makes the activity level of certain brain areas visible. Functional magnetic resonance imaging makes this possible.
Medical imaging techniques have developed considerably in recent decades. In addition to morphological imaging techniques more and more functional imaging techniques are used in oncology that can continously record the functions of specific organs locally and regionally in real time. These are groundbreaking for diagnostics, therapies and preoperative preparations.
