Release date: Nov. 10, 2004
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Picture This: Emory Mathematicians Go to the Heart of High Resolution Imaging

Powerful imaging devices have transformed what scientists and doctors can see, whether they're using huge telescopes to peer into deep space, or medical imaging devices to diagnose disease. Getting sharp, clear images remains a challenge, but research by Emory University mathematics and computer science professor James Nagy is helping to bring such work into shaper focus. One aspect of his research may even help improve the treatment of cardiac disease by improving views of the heart.

Nagy's research is centered on super-resolution for imaging devices, and involves the development and implementation of computer programs to make better, faster and easier to use image reconstruction and enhancement tools.

These imaging devices, ranging from large telescopes to modern microscopes and medical radiology tools, usually combine a device that collects light, or similar radiation measurements, with a computer that assembles the collected data into images that can be viewed. In addition to this, other computer enhancement programs are used to remove distortion and "noise" from the picture. For example, in astronomy, the Earth's atmosphere causes images collected by ground-based telescopes to look blurry, so enhancement techniques are used to remove some of this blur.

"We look at images in terms of their mathematical structures. Our research is not to use these imaging devices, but to write computer programs that will perform the image enhancement techniques,” Nagy said. “The process of doing that requires solving tens of thousands, maybe millions, of mathematical equations. The translation of these equations into a set of instructions for the computer is called an algorithm.”

Nagy, along with Eldad Haber, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, and John Oshinski, M.D., in Emory's Department of Radiology, have embarked on a new project involving magnetic resonance imaging, an invaluable tool for diagnosing and monitoring diseases. Nagy and his colleagues aim to apply their knowledge of super resolution to greatly enhance the clarity of MRI scans, with a particular emphasis on improving the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac diseases.

For now, it is very difficult to obtain high resolution, 3-dimensional images from MRI scans. Although MRI scans are capable of producing 3-dimensional images that have high resolution in the axial plane, they typically have substantially lower resolution from other directions. Another, more difficult problem stems from the fact that the heart is moving when the MRI data is collected, causing the reconstructed images to be distorted by motion blurs.

To compensate for the heart's movement, Nagy says there are two issues that need to be addressed. The first is to estimate the direction and magnitude of the motion, which may be different for each pixel in the image. For this, they plan to use a technique known as optical flow that involves taking a series of images of the heart and reconstructing them into one image. The second is to develop efficient, reliable computational techniques to remove distortions caused by the motion, which will be part of a longer-term project.

"We're at the early stages, but this work could have tremendous impact on health care for patients with heart disease by providing better tools for doctors," Nagy says. The initial phase of this research is supported by a grant from the Emory College Office of Research, and other related research by Nagy is supported by the National Science Foundation.

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