Wu B M, Lam F K, Chan F H, Poon P W, Brugge J F, Chan J C, So A T
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Med Biol Eng Comput. 1997 Nov;35(6):587-94. doi: 10.1007/BF02510965.
A computerised infrared imaging system has been developed to measure infrared radiation as a means of functionally mapping the cerebral cortex. In two species of small mammal, rat and gerbil, the authors localised the thermal changes at the skull overlying the somatic sensory cortex following somatic stimulation of the mystacial vibrissae. Though typically small in magnitude, a thermal response could be detected through the skull. To enhance detection sensitivity, a number of measures were taken to improve various aspects of data acquisition, stimulus delivery and control of experimental conditions. Regarding data analysis, a coordinate system based on skull landmarks was adopted to localise thermally-active regions for comparison across animals of the same species. To extract the region of weak temperature changes, a coarse-to-fine detection strategy was developed, which searched automatically for clusters of temporally- and spatially-correlated pixels above a data-driven threshold. Thus, the dynamic aspect of the thermal changes at any region of interest on the skull could be studied efficiently. The detection algorithm was tested against simulated responses in addition to empirical data obtained from animals. All of the above software was integrated in a user-friendly package.
已开发出一种计算机化红外成像系统，用于测量红外辐射，以此作为对大脑皮层进行功能映射的一种手段。在大鼠和沙鼠这两种小型哺乳动物中，作者对触须受到躯体刺激后体感皮层上方颅骨处的热变化进行了定位。尽管热响应幅度通常较小，但可通过颅骨检测到。为提高检测灵敏度，采取了多项措施来改善数据采集、刺激传递及实验条件控制等各个方面。在数据分析方面，采用基于颅骨标志点的坐标系来定位热活动区域，以便在同一物种的不同动物之间进行比较。为提取微弱温度变化区域，开发了一种从粗到精的检测策略，该策略会自动搜索高于数据驱动阈值的时间和空间相关像素簇。这样，就可以有效地研究颅骨上任何感兴趣区域热变化的动态情况。除了从动物获得的经验数据外，还针对模拟响应测试了检测算法。上述所有软件都集成在一个用户友好的软件包中。
