Neurosurgical Planning with Multiparametric MRI Protocol

Visualization of the nervous system anatomy is essential to minimize surgical trauma by assisting with localization of affected areas and facilitating tissue excision. In this study, an anatomical-functional reference for neurosurgical planning was established through the three-dimensional reconstruction of the skull, neural networks, tractography and angiography. With the use of a MRI system, an acquisition protocol was designed that integrated a volumetric T1-weighted sequence, diffusion tensor imaging, time-of-flight angiography, and innovative techniques such as zero-echo time and resting-state functional MRI. Post-processing was developed using artificial intelligence, programming codes, and visualization tools. An expert medical team visually validated the reconstructions of three subjects (healthy control, temporal epilepsy, and tumor) using an open-source visualization platform, which enhanced the identification of pathologies and the determination of optimal surgical trajectories to avoid damage to eloquent brain areas. Finally, viewing and manipulation of the reconstructions could be performed without the need of a workstation.